Mind Games
by AdaSonata
Summary: What do you get when you cross a depressed, emotionally ill-equipped, genius with a logical acidic solution?
1. Pro: Say something, I'm giving up on you

**Mind Games**

**Summary:** What do you get when you cross a depressed emotionally ill-equipped genius with a logical acidic solution?

**Disclaimer:** This is a fan-fiction story of the TV Series: Scorpion, and is in no way affiliated with the actual story/series in any of the aforementioned media. All characters and other materials related to the show that are used are not intended to infringe on any Copyrights. Elemental-Zer0 takes sole responsibility for any mistakes or offence that may be taken but truly not meant. However, any characters that are not related to any copyrights are copyrighted to Elemental-Zer0, as are any adaptions/variations to the plot set out in the original author's story/plot.

**Authors Note: **Season 4 finale was the ultimate depressive cliff-hangar. I'm sure you all agree. The inability to understand emotion or how to react and deal with it in a socially acceptable way is something I also suffer with. Clearly not as bad as the characters in this show, I'm only borderline. But the struggle to understand the emotional responses of others is something i can wholly relate to. Its different in a story to real life. In a story you know why the characters are feeling the way they do because the story builds up to it and tells you whats bothering them. Real life doesn't have that hand guide.

This Prologue came from my imagination of what Walter and Paige might have said if the doors to the meeting room at the end of the final episode hadn't shut, and Paige had stopped to listen. The story continues after this prologue a few weeks after that interaction in Chapter One.

Anyways, let me know what you think, but no flames please. If you have any criticism to make please do it _politely_ otherwise I shall ignore your words. (It's happened before, I'm sorry to say, and I hadn't even posted any real chapters…)

Song lyrics used in this prologue are from the well known song: _Say Something _by_ A Great Big World. _I don't own any rights to the song except for creative use in a non profit fan-fiction publication.

* * *

**Prologue: Say something, I'm giving up on you**

* * *

"_Say something, I'm giving up on you,_

_I'll be the one, if you want me to._

_Anywhere, I would've followed you._

_Say something, I'm giving up on you._"

* * *

"Paige, wait…" His voice cracked, his control and his conviction wavered in the heat of her glare.

"What for?" She asked, emotion held reigned in with impressive control, but her eyes betrayed her heart. She searched for something in him, something he didn't know if he had.

* * *

"_And I am feeling so small,_

_It was over my head,_

_I know nothing at all,_

_And I will stumble and fall._"

* * *

"I need to explain to, to you…" He tried, to tell her, he tried to explain, to express what he was feeling but how could he? It was too overwhelming to understand. He faltered, unsure of how to make things right.

"Of course, you do Walter." She cut in, patience gone with his halting attempts to communicate, and her heart taking the brunt of his callous comments. "But its always the same thing. You always need to explain…" she said, tears threatening the corners of her eyes. She shook her head in disappointment. "You haven't learned anything, have you." It wasn't a question. She believed it as fact.

* * *

"_I'm still learning to love,_

_Just starting to crawl._"

* * *

"Paige please…" he tried again, the pain in his heart forcing him to keep trying. He had an IQ of 197, how could this not be clear to him? Why couldn't he figure it out? What was he doing wrong here?

"No Walter… Enough." Her words were sharp and short. "I'm done." They cut him deeply. "Your experiment is over." She turned on her heel and started walking away.

"Please…" his hand reached out to her, but his feet couldn't move. It felt like they'd been nailed down to the ground. All he could do was watch as, yet another loved one, turned their back on him for reasons he still couldn't understand.

* * *

"_Say something, I'm giving up on you…_"


	2. Ch1: The Illusion of Love

**Mind Games**

**Summary:** What do you get when you cross a depressed emotionally ill-equipped genius with a logical acidic solution?

**Disclaimer:** This is a fan-fiction story of the TV Series: Scorpion, and is in no way affiliated with the actual story/series in any of the aforementioned media. All characters and other materials related to the show that are used are not intended to infringe on any Copyrights. Elemental-Zer0 takes sole responsibility for any mistakes or offence that may be taken but truly not meant. However, any characters that are not related to any copyrights are copyrighted to Elemental-Zer0, as are any adaptions/variations to the plot set out in the original author's story/plot.

**Authors Note: **This chapter has some triggering moments in it about suicide. Please don't consider it. If you feel you need help, please contact your local help lines. I'm not a qualified therapist and am ill-equipped to deal with others' emotions on a normal daily basis, so please find someone professional to talk to and seek help. You are not alone in this, you are worth saving, you are worth loving.

Anyways, let me know what you think, but no flames please. If you have any criticism to make please do it _politely_ otherwise I shall ignore your words. (It's happened before, I'm sorry to say, and I hadn't even posted any real chapters…)

* * *

**Chapter One: The Illusion of Love**

The concept of cheating was not unknown to Walter. The idea of a monogamous partnership for life was… popular, and while he couldn't imagine being with anyone other than Paige, the logic was inaccurate. A polygamous relationship would increase chances of conception and then human survival would be at its most optimal.

He could see how early Christianity had foreseen the overpopulation years ahead of everyone else and that by enhancing the moralistic views of a monogamous relationship, it would slow down the population rates.

It was all scientific, and the calculations and the logic made sense.

Relationships in general were also a survival instinct. A gathering of humans were more likely to survive together, with each member providing a different perspective and skill. The chances and odds were more optimal in a community. It made sense even if the members didn't get on well together. There were greater odds of success by sticking together.

He didn't understand why a group would walk away from an opportunity to be at its best. Why friends, or family would willingly walk away from better chances…

He'd heard all of them say that they were a family. A cyclone. That the strongest bonds were with those who could forgive each other's flaws and mistakes. But for reasons he could not compute, he was an apparent exception to that rule.

His father. And his mother… his whole family were strangers to him. They'd been the first to abandon him; to give up trying to understand his world. And Meghan... Meghan hadn't had the choice. She'd been the last person he could connect with, and she had been ripped from him too soon. He was left floundering around, unable to conceive his existence without her.

Throughout all of that, Paige had been the rock he'd felt tethered to. The one person who helped him make sense of the world and his own emotions.

And his existence had even pushed her away. Pure, patient Paige had grown tired of his world, and his ways.

What was the point now? He was a very smart man in a world that shunned him and walked past as he suffered, with notion of why or how to fix it. How could he fix himself? He could do so much good for the world, he had so much to offer… but the world clearly didn't want him.

He eyed the beaker before him. It was a simple chemical solution. A highly concentrated form of acid. The strongest Florence could create.

She'd believed him when he'd told her it was for an experiment. To measure the length of time it would take for it to dissolve organic material in a drain. He told her he'd been experimenting with the idea of creating a new drain de-clogger to help with the funding of Scorpion 2.0.

He still didn't understand the difference between a white lie and a complete untruth. Paige had said that a lie that protected someone's feelings was a good thing; a white lie. So telling Florence that her acid was for an experiment wasn't an untruth. Telling her it was for the de-clogger was a protective lie; a white lie. Right?

The note he'd written was also full of white lies. It told them all that they were not part of the calculations he'd made to follow the conclusion he'd come to. That their abandonment of him at his most desperate time of need held no bearing to his logical conclusion that the world was better off without one Walter Obrien.

He'd written that their actions were emotionally reasonable to them and he accepted that. He understood that he was not capable of giving them the emotional empathy that they required from a friend. He understood and forgave them for putting their own health above his. It was as Paige had said, the emotional level of a 15 year old was probably as far as he was capable of growing to. He'd hit the limit. There was no need for him to try any more.

So he came to the only logical conclusion a 15 year old emotionally destroyed young boy would come to.

Suicide.

* * *

Cabe was a man of action. He was not an indecisive creature by nature. But the job he'd been offered was… tempting. He knew he'd turn it down though. Walter was not stable enough to handle another friend abandon him for something better than he could offer.

Still, he was getting old. His knees and his back were starting to complain more. His sight was also starting its own countdown timer. He couldn't leave Walter like he was, but how long could he keep pulling the stunts he did for the kid?

He pulled up to the garage, and sat in the car for a few seconds. His mind racing with unanswered questions. He sighed and looked at the garage door for a moment. Trying to work up the courage to face whatever emotionally bound experiment was waiting for him inside. Swallowing his fears, he opened the door made his way inside.

It was quiet. Dust motes circled in the weak sunlight that filtered through the grubby windows. The air eddied but otherwise remained still. Cabe's hackles were up before he even fully registered the danger.

The resounding boom of an explosive deafened him just as the concussive blast threw him over the nearest desk. It was several minutes before he could unscramble his brain and think.

"Walter!" His shout was hampered by several coughs as smoke and debris now choked the previously still air. He forced himself up and moved to the bottom of the stairs that lead up to Walter's converted apartment. The blast had originated from up there. He hesitated, his heart almost stopping at the question of whether Walter could have survived such a close contact explosion. And he faltered again at the thought of who had made the bomb. Had Walter been attacked?

Or

Had he attacked himself?

Cabe was a man of action damnit. He had to find out.

He put his hand on the bottom of the rail and managed to put one foot on the bottom step before two gunshots went off behind him. He turned as quickly as his training had instilled but the darkness that followed that turn had him tumbling to the floor. He lay there for a moment, not quite sure of what had just happened. The cold floor of the garage was oddly soothing to his old tired body. He felt sleepy, and suddenly couldn't hold onto a coherent thought.

He let himself drift off, unaware of the fate of the man he thought of as his own son in the now destroyed apartment above him.


	3. Ch2: The Shrapnel of our Lives

**Mind Games**

**Summary:** What do you get when you cross a depressed emotionally ill-equipped genius with a logical acidic solution?

**Disclaimer:** This is a fan-fiction story of the TV Series: Scorpion, and is in no way affiliated with the actual story/series in any of the aforementioned media. All characters and other materials related to the show that are used are not intended to infringe on any Copyrights. Elemental-Zer0 takes sole responsibility for any mistakes or offence that may be taken but truly not meant. However, any characters that are not related to any copyrights are copyrighted to Elemental-Zer0, as are any adaptions/variations to the plot set out in the original author's story/plot.

**Authors Note: **Wow, so many reviews after only having posted this a few hours ago. Guess I'd better try to please you all with another chapter. I will warn you though; I'm a sporadic writer which means I write when inspired. Currently that's now but I have been known to leave stories for a few years before I updated again. Don't want to get your hopes up with my current rapid-fire updates.

Anyways, let me know what you think, but no flames please. If you have any criticism to make please do it _politely_ otherwise I shall ignore your words. (It's happened before, I'm sorry to say, and I hadn't even posted any real chapters…)

* * *

**Chapter Two: The Shrapnel of our Lives**

The Centipede Partnership had had relative success since day one. Paige hadn't really thought it would take off as well as it had. Truth be told she'd only signed up to distract herself from the pain of Walter and his inability to be what she wanted him to be for her, what she'd tried to coach him to be. She'd had to deal with Sylvester's depressive state, and curb the rants from both Toby and Happy because while she was hurting, she knew that Walter was just Walter. He didn't have the capacity to understand anything outside of his own little world and that was not a healthy place for her to be in.

A move away from a toxic environment was a good step for all of them. Walter included. At least that's how she saw it.

She'd been hurt by most of the men in her life too many times. She didn't feel that she had the strength of heart to keep trying with Walter. Love just wasn't enough this time. She'd hoped it would be, had tried so hard to make it be enough. But the lies about going out with that chemist… the inability to understand what he'd done wrong… the trust she now no longer had in him…

She pulled up to their temporary headquarters. An old factory warehouse that wasn't too far from the garage they'd recently run away from. It was the only thing they could collectively afford to begin with, and it was easier to transfer their things to from their former home.

She wiped her tears away, unaware of when they'd started and quickly shook herself out of her reverie. She had a job to do. The taxes weren't going to balance themselves. She took a moment then opened the car door and got out…

Just as the sound of a bomb exploding hit the world.

The shock made her gasp and her eyes widened as she looked around for the origin of the danger. Sylvester, Happy and Toby raced outside too, and all four sets of eyes were drawn east to a climbing plume of dark, black smoke. It had been close. And all four of them knew what lay in the direction of where the heavy smoke trail was coming from.

"Was that…" Toby began.

"The garage!" Happy was moving before she'd finished speaking. Toby ducked back inside to grab his medic bag and followed suit. No one hesitated when they moved; the animosity, the anger and the betrayal were all forgotten in the wake of the possibility that Walter and Cabe had been hurt.

The smoke was heaviest at the back of the garage, where Walter's apartment had been located. And as the four former members of Scorpion came upon the scene, there was a beat of hesitation. It was just one solid second of stunned silence. One sixtieth of a minute. But in that moment of stillness, images flashed across their minds of all the possibilities of what they'd find inside. They were innumerable.

The moment passed as quickly as it came, despite it having felt like forever, and Toby moved first. The other three followed instantly and threw themselves through the open side door.

The inside of the garage looked, to put it bluntly, like a bomb had gone off. Which it had, Happy surmised as she looked around the area. The upper walls were charred slightly with the sudden introduction to heat. The glass from the top floor had been blown out completely and was now crunching beneath their feet. It smelled of burnt carbon and ozone and the place was eerily still and quiet.

"Walter?!" Toby called out, hoping to provoke a response. It was clear that something bad had happened here, but was the source of danger still here? He was tentative to call out but his need to help his former boss overtook any other safety instinct he may have had. Despite their differences, they'd had a whole history together and both had saved the other in so many different ways over the past few years that it was hard to imagine they'd never be friends again. Even if this little spat was lasting a lot longer than most of the arguments they'd all had before.

"Doc!" Happy cried out as she spotted Cabe on the floor, face down at the bottom of the stairs. She was moving before she was really aware of her own actions, with Toby following closely at her heels. Sylvester hung back a little, his nausea rising with the sight of blood and the anxiety of the situation.

Paige however, felt her blood freeze. If Cabe was down… He was supposed to keep Walter safe. He was Walter's shield from bad guys… If the shield was down and out…

"I swear if this is one of Walter's experiments again…" Happy almost ranted but her fear made her lips loose. She, just like they all were, was secretly hoping it was just an accidental experiment gone wrong. The alternative was too complicated to deal with now.

"I don't think so." Toby said as he fell to Cabe's side. His voice was tight as he adjusted his position to get a better look at the injuries the old man had. "These are bullet wounds." He said with a slight trepidation in his tone. He paused for just a second, his thoughts a whirlwind in his head – Who? Why? How? – but then his training kicked in and he went to work.

"The marks in the glass and dust on the floor shows he was going to go up, but stopped, and turned before he fell." Happy said as she analysed the dents and markings left in the shattered glass on the floor. "This must have happened after the blast or there wouldn't be any marks in the glass." She said as she finished her assessment.

"Only reason someone would stop going up is if something caught his attention." Toby said as he pulled open his medical bag and snapped on a pair of medical gloves and grabbed a penlight. "He'd have no reason to turn if that someone who caught his attention was upstairs. And the bullets are in his back." He continued as he shone the light into the first wound.

"The only logical conclusion would be that Cabe went to go upstairs, was shot in the back and probably turned to get a look at the guy before he fell." Happy replied. As Sylvester cautiously made his way over to the downed agent, he caught a glance at what Happy had pointed out.

"There's a smaller set of footprints going up." He noticed and then paled as he realised the implications of what he'd just said. "…and none coming back down."

All four shared a horrid thought. Was someone was still up there?

Happy grabbed the nearest weapon she could find, which turned out to be a very heavy-set wrench. One of hers actually that had been forgotten in the rapid transfer of their things. Paige grabbed a long, broken metal pipe that was probably a table leg before the blast, and gave Happy a determined look. They both nodded and headed up the stairs.

"Be careful ladies." Toby called after them quietly as he worked. "Sly, can you call an ambulance already? Cabe's not getting less dead down here without one."

* * *

The glass crunched lightly but in the stillness of the moment, it might as well have sounded like a fog horn to whoever might have been up in the apartment still. Not that they wouldn't have heard them coming in anyway. Lord knows how loud they'd been at first.

When they crested the top of the stairs, Paige couldn't help but gasp at the sight. The apartment looked like a war zone. The sofa and the chairs were on their backs or their sides, the stuffing floating down from various angles. The coffee table had been shattered and its splinters were littered all over the room. The fridge from the kitchenette had been pushed across the room and was now on its side leaking all sorts of food and mechanical fluids.

The place was a mess.

Paige felt her eyes tear up at the sight. All the memories of her happy times here; all the movie nights in; the bad popcorn; the long cosy cuddles on the sofa under the blanket with Walter's nerdy attempts at romance… all of it was physically and metaphorically up in smoke.

Had Walter been up here when the bomb had gone off?

"I don't think he was up here." Happy said as she picked her way through the carnage, unconsciously echoing Paige's direction of thought. "If he were, we'd be seeing bits of him by now." She added, giving Paige another nightmarish image to add to the collection she'd just unwillingly memorised.

"Then where is he?" She asked, unaware she'd said it out loud.

"The bedroom, maybe?" Happy suggested and Paige took a moment to gulp down her worst fears. She'd been angry with him. Upset and disappointed with him. But god, she still loved him. You can't just stop loving someone even if you were beyond furious with them. She'd wanted to hurt him the way he'd hurt her, she wanted him to squirm and suffer for what he'd pulled. She wanted him to come back to her begging and crying for her to forgive him.

But she never imagined she might lose him completely.

Walter was too smart for that. He'd have seen or known something was wrong and protected himself. He'd have come up with some strange idea that would save him from the mess and fire. Like throwing himself into the bath tub, or the shower cubical, or something.

Happy took a step toward the bedroom and unknowingly woke Paige from her imagination. There was only one way to find out.

The two crept close to the bedroom doorway and carefully peeked inside.

It was empty. Paige let loose the breath she hadn't known she'd been holding and let her muscles relax a little. It still didn't explain what had happened or where Walter was. Had he been out getting groceries or something? Was he even aware there was something wrong with his home right now? He'd be devastated. And furious. And she had to admit that she didn't know how Walter would react to Cabe's medical predicament downstairs. She'd have to tell him, keep an eye on him for loose thinking patterns.

She shook her head. She was thinking like she was still part of Scorpion. Like they were still on speaking terms. But knowing Walter, he'd need someone to offload with. He'd need someone to help him through this. Could she set aside her anger with him to help him? Wasn't this the very thing she'd been trying to run away from?

"Oh no." Happy's voice cut through her thoughts and suddenly her fear for Walter's safety was more important than the politics of the non-friendship she and he currently had. Happy was stood by the bedside unit. A piece of paper in her hands and a broken beaker. Her eyes had been tracking the writing on the paper with a fear that had Paige afraid to ask what she was about to ask.

"What is it?" her voice was soft and tight, and wavered before she could finish the question. Deep down she knew what it was. But it didn't make sense. It wasn't the logical way of thinking that was Walter. It couldn't be what she hoped it wasn't.

"A suicide note." Happy replied, her own voice tight with tears.

Paige's world tilted. The lights grew a little dim and the world just ceased to make sense for a moment.

"He's…"


	4. Ch3: Misdirections of a Different Kind

**Mind Games**

**Summary:** What do you get when you cross a depressed emotionally ill-equipped genius with a logical acidic solution?

**Disclaimer:** This is a fan-fiction story of the TV Series: Scorpion, and is in no way affiliated with the actual story/series in any of the aforementioned media. All characters and other materials related to the show that are used are not intended to infringe on any Copyrights. Elemental-Zer0 takes sole responsibility for any mistakes or offence that may be taken but truly not meant. However, any characters that are not related to any copyrights are copyrighted to Elemental-Zer0, as are any adaptions/variations to the plot set out in the original author's story/plot.

**Authors Note: **So, many of you are guessing at what happened. Unfortunately we won't find out the whole sequence of events in this chapter but feel free to keep guessing with these new clues. Hope this chapter doesn't disappoint.

Let me know what you think, but no flames please. If you have any criticism to make please do it _politely_ otherwise I shall ignore your words. (It's happened before, I'm sorry to say, and I hadn't even posted any real chapters…)

* * *

**Chapter Three: Misdirections of a Different Kind**

"He's…"

She tried but couldn't say it.

"No, I don't think so." Happy said quickly. She was shaken by the note, that much was clear, but she was also a genius and could see the facts for what they were. "There's no body, or… body parts." She pointed out, uneasy with saying it out loud about her former friend. "If he'd built an explosive solution strong enough to vaporise himself, it'd have to be enough to take the whole upper floor out with him." She added as she continued to look around for clues. "This was definitely an incendiary device though. The markings are textbook indicators."

Paige felt her legs give way and she landed on the upturned rug in her visible relief. The emotions and the adrenaline flooded her system and she felt a little hysterical when she replied. "So where is he then? I swear if he's at the mall or some bank, I'm literally going to…" she started ranting but then couldn't find a word to describe what she would do to the man.

"He's not at the shops." Happy said, an edge to her voice as she picked up something that was too small for Paige to make out from her seat on the floor by the bedroom doorway. Happy was moving though, rapidly and she was heading to the stairs. As she blew passed Paige, the former waitress caught a glimpse of the object that had Happy on edge.

A syringe. With a small globule of a green tinted liquid still inside.

"What is that?" Paige asked as she got herself up and followed the young mechanic to the stairs. Happy spoke as she started down the steps.

"I think it's a sedative. A strong one commonly used for drugging kidnap victims." She said catching Toby's attention. He looked up from his impromptu surgery on their old friends back with Sylvester acting as reluctant nurse.

"Show me." He said with both hands busy with the second wound already. Happy held it up for him and he squinted at the thing for a second. "Oh yes. That's the industrial stuff alright." He confirmed then squinted again noticing the slight discolouration of where the liquid has been before it had dispensed into presumably someone's bloodstream. Preferably not Walter's but it was looking very likely at this stage. "Looks like it was filled to 20ccs. Enough to knock a man of Walter's size out instantly and keep him out for a day or two." He added and gave the girls a quick studying glance. "I'm assuming you didn't find him?" he asked, already knowing they hadn't. If they had, there'd be a lot less confusion and fear on their faces.

"No." Happy confirmed. "No sign of him." Then she seemed to have a thought. "I'm going to check the ramp though. I'm assuming that's how the guy got down, because he sure as hell didn't come down this way and it was clear upstairs."

"Who would do this to him?" Paige asked aloud, she'd intended for the thought to be private because in all honesty, Walter could easily piss someone off enough to make a bomb and deploy it in his home.

"Walter is adept at making enemies Paige, we should know; he made enemies out of his closest and trusted friends. There were several times I myself envisaged a scene of death and carnage for the man." Sylvester replied but the sarcasm was wilted and lacked lustre. "But," he sighed, "I have to admit, I never intended to carry it out, and now that I've seen it, the shame I'm feeling right now is making me nauseous." He admitted.

"Walter wasn't the one at fault with your issue, Sly." Toby said, as he placed a set of clamps over a slow bleeding vein. "You know Walter would never intentionally sabotage your relationship opportunities." He added as a distant sound of sirens finally echoed through the garage. "Finally." He muttered to himself but continued working.

"He didn't have to say what he did. He knows I have issues with my courage. I couldn't just ask Florence out like that!" Sylvester replied defensively. His anger still hadn't dissipated apparently.

"And why do you think he said those words, Sly? Think about what Paige had just said to him. What was he feeling when you attacked him for acting flirty with the chemist?" Toby asked.

"Nothing!" Sylvester replied heatedly. Though whether the anger was directed at himself or Walter was unknown yet. "The man says so himself. He has no emotions! He can't feel anything!" He ranted.

"That's a lie." Paige found herself saying, and felt just as surprised as the other two did when she heard herself. "I… I mean, it's true that he struggles with his emotions and how to handle them, but he's not without feelings. He wouldn't have done half the things he had if he was a complete robot." She explained herself, surprised that she was defending the man who had hurt her so much.

"And technically, it was Paige who taught him to lie to begin with so really, can we blame Walter for that too?" Toby asked, his question was aimed at Paige this time who frowned in defence. Sylvester also looked a little confused.

"I did what?" Paige asked indignantly. "I didn't teach him to lie…" But before she could finish her rebuttal, Toby interrupted her with his best impersonation of her.

"A white lie is a lie that makes someone feel better, Walter. Sometimes it's a good thing to lie to protect those you love from feeling hurt or upset about something." He paraphrased and Paige paled considerably. Of-course Walter wouldn't understand the difference.

"Oh god." She said, shakily. "I taught him to lie." The realisation was like a punch to the gut and suddenly she couldn't get enough air into her lungs. She told him to lie to protect others' feelings. She'd practically told him to lie to her about the lecture, to lie to her about taking Florence… She'd practically set him up to fail.

"And let's not forget what we all did to protect him from himself when he was trapped in space." Toby added casually. "We did the exact same thing he tried to do for you." He said, reminding both of them that they had all lied to Walter about his delusional state in his impromptu trip to the earths outermost atmospheric orbit.

"What have I done…" Paige wheezed and felt, for the second time in less than an hour, her legs give out from beneath her. She was hyperventilating and losing herself to her own panic.

"Paige, calm down. We're all to blame here. No one is innocent in this fall out." Toby said in a strong and calm voice. He was trying to therapy her current distress while knuckle deep in a tricky gunshot wound, and the place smelling like burnt everything was not helping his nerves. It seemed to work a little though as the sound of Paige's breathing did slow a little. "Right now, we need to focus on the immediate issues." Tony continued, his stitch kit was now open on the small of Cabe's back with a needle and thread being hurriedly threaded in his blood sodden hands. "Cabe is slowly bleeding out here, and Walter is missing, presumably kidnapped." The thread finally made it through the stitching needle, and he pulled it through to ensure it wouldn't accidentally fall out and need re-threading. "We need to get Cabe to a hospital and start looking for who might have Walter." He listed off, hoping that a plan, if only a slight one, would help re-rail everyone's minds and help them all focus on the main issue.

"You're right. The ambulance will be here soon so that should take care of that issue." Paige replied, her breathing still fast but she was in control for now. "But how the hell do we start looking for Walter? Who would go to these extreme lengths to kidnap him, and why?" She asked, hoping that one of the geniuses would have an idea.

She was not wrong.

"I think I know who has him." Came Happy's voice from the bottom of the ramp. Three set of eyes stared back at her expectantly. She held up a pair of 70's style wide-rimmed gold trimmed glasses.

"Are those…" Sylvester started to ask but didn't feel the need to voice his suspicion.

"Yep." Happy said dejectedly. "Looks like Collins has him."


	5. Ch4: Broken beyond Repair?

**Mind Games**

**Summary:** What do you get when you cross a depressed emotionally ill-equipped genius with a logical acidic solution?

**Disclaimer:** This is a fan-fiction story of the TV Series: Scorpion, and is in no way affiliated with the actual story/series in any of the aforementioned media. All characters and other materials related to the show that are used are not intended to infringe on any Copyrights. Elemental-Zer0 takes sole responsibility for any mistakes or offence that may be taken but truly not meant. However, any characters that are not related to any copyrights are copyrighted to Elemental-Zer0, as are any adaptions/variations to the plot set out in the original author's story/plot.

**Authors Note: **Its a small chapter for now. More will follow in the next few days. Promise!

Let me know what you think, but no flames please. If you have any criticism to make please do it _politely_ otherwise I shall ignore your words. (It's happened before, I'm sorry to say, and I hadn't even posted any real chapters…)

* * *

_**Chapter Four: Broken beyond Repair?**_

All four of them took a moment to let the news sink in.

"Mark Collins has him?" Paige asked, her voice was soft but only because she couldn't bring herself to say it louder.

"Let me get this straight." Sylvester said with a tremor to his voice. "A genius level psychopath, with sociopathic tendencies and an obsession with trickery, diversions, and an ulterior motive that we're still not completely clear on, has Walter?" He asked rhetorically. His voice had begun to grow more hysterical as he listed all the negatives in his analysis of the situation, but he couldn't help himself. He was angry, and upset, he didn't know who's fault that was anymore, and his ex-friend – _who was rapidly becoming a friend-come-victim in the light of new information and perspectives _– was in the hands of a mad man who had already tried to kill Toby (twice) and derail Scorpion by attacking Cabe. (twice again now).

"Do you think Collins wrote the suicide note as a diversion?" Paige asked, her voice was still small and frightened, but Toby could only hear the words, "_suicide_" and "_note_" in that sentence.

"What suicide note?" he asked suddenly. But just as he did, a team of paramedics crashed in through the door way, bringing with them the organised chaos that most emergency situations do. Toby had to divert his attention from Paige and the mention of a suicide note to updating the paramedics on what he'd diagnosed and done.

The paramedics didn't need to do much in the way of prep to get Cabe into the ambulance. Toby had already taken the bullets out, patched up the bleeds and started with a few removable stitches to keep the wounds from getting any infections. The hospital would now take over with the more invasive stuff like blood pressure and clean up. He couldn't see any reason why Cabe wouldn't make a full recovery.

With the rush of getting Cabe to the nearest hospital, and with Sylvester in the back of the ambulance too, Toby had time to focus on Paige's last comment before the paramedics has arrived.

"Can I see this suicide note please?" He asked as they started walking back to get their car. They would meet up with Sylvester at the hospital who would keep an eye on things at his end until they got there.

Logically Toby should have been there instead, but something about this note had him on edge. Paige nodded her head to Happy who passed it across as they walked quickly back to their own HQ to get the cars. Toby read it quickly; it was a well thought out note, the style of writing showed that every word had been considered. The penmanship was definitely Walter's, there was no hiding the slanted cursive that had often graced their white boards when Walter had been in lecture mode. And there were no signs of writing it under reluctance or duress either.

The implications slowly dawned on him.

The trouble Walter had just found himself in was now doubled. If the suicide note was genuine, and Toby believed it was, then their former boss was not in a fit mental state to fight Collins' mental misdirections and mind games. Collins had Walter right where he wanted him, and they had allowed it to happen. By leaving Scorpion, they'd made him vulnerable to attack in more ways than just the physical.

It made him wonder if Collins had been manipulating them before the argument that had ended their employment under Walter. If that was the case…

"Guys this is bad!" He called and he caught them up to speed in the car ride to the hospital.

* * *

Walter woke slowly. It wasn't quite what he'd been expecting. He'd imagined a lot of pain and a slow death. And he certainly hadn't expected to wake up feeling only a headache and slight nausea. Had Florence made a mistake when she'd given him the acid?

He frowned to himself. He couldn't remember actually drinking the acid though. It had been in the beaker on his night stand, he'd been looking at it while contemplating the task he was about to undertake. But he couldn't remember reaching out and drinking it. He was sure that that specific moment would have stuck out in his memories, especially if he'd somehow survived the action.

The fact was that if he had, he'd be in a lot more pain right now. So, something had interrupted his date with death. And it was a sudden interruption because he couldn't remember it at all. And he certainly didn't recognise the bed he was on or the room he was in either.

What had happened then?

His curiosity had piqued but then it fell again. What did it matter? The logical conclusion was that someone had drugged him and taken him somewhere to do unspeakable horrors that he probably deserves. Paige had said he was abrupt and blunt and that it came across as callous and arrogant. He'd probably offended a lot of people without really realising it. The calculations were endless with the possibilities.

Maybe he could insult his kidnappers enough to do the job for him?

The sound of a heavy set door opening, had Walter's attention and he opened his eyes again, unaware of when he'd closed them.

"Good morning my estranged and distant friend." His focus was blurry, but it soon cleared as he recognised the voice of his captor. "Did you have a nice sleep?" Mark Collins asked as he stepped into the room.

Walter felt his stomach drop.


	6. Ch5: Let the Games begin

**Mind Games**

**Summary:** What do you get when you cross a depressed emotionally ill-equipped genius with a logical acidic solution?

**Disclaimer:** This is a fan-fiction story of the TV Series: Scorpion, and is in no way affiliated with the actual story/series in any of the aforementioned media. All characters and other materials related to the show that are used are not intended to infringe on any Copyrights. Elemental-Zer0 takes sole responsibility for any mistakes or offence that may be taken but truly not meant. However, any characters that are not related to any copyrights are copyrighted to Elemental-Zer0, as are any adaptions/variations to the plot set out in the original author's story/plot.

**Authors Note: **I'm still overwhelmed by all the lovely responses to this fic. Thank you everyone, thank you so much.

Let me know what you think, but no flames please. If you have any criticism to make please do it _politely_ otherwise I shall ignore your words. (It's happened before, I'm sorry to say, and I hadn't even posted any real chapters…)

* * *

_**Chapter Five: Let the Games begin**_

"So, we've been played?" Happy asked as the trio abandoned the car in the hospital carpark and rushed to the entrance. "How?" She asked, trying to make the connections in her head and keep her breath in the fast walk to the reception.

"I don't know specifically, Walter would be able to figure it out but he's the one we need to find." Toby replied just as they found Sylvester pacing toward them.

"Sly, how is Cabe, have you heard anything?" Paige asked as they all came to a stop in the middle of the hall.

"He's stable for now. They've got him in theatre at the moment, cleaning up what you started. The surgeon said your handwriting is terrible. I don't know what that means because you hadn't written anything that I could see…" Sylvester reported a little confused. Toby gave him a pat on his shoulder.

"Don't worry, they're just criticising my stitch work." He explained then asked, "Is there a waiting room we can commandeer?" Sylvester sensed that there was an update which was important and not for the ears of the public. He nodded quickly and led the way to the room he'd been shown in to minutes before.

It was a small room, one with a window and set of toilets on the other side of the hall. No one was in the room when they entered so Happy closed the door behind them and jerry-rigged a temporary lock to ensure privacy. They quickly caught Sylvester up to date with the authenticity of the suicide note and Toby's conclusions.

"He's played us?" He asked, sitting down heavily as he realised that this whole turbulent time in their lives had been set up by their arch nemesis.

"It looks that way, I just dunno how." Toby replied as he paced the small room. Happy stared angrily out of the window, clearly also trying to figure out the issue while Paige sat herself down on one of the benches and held her head in a self-recriminating gesture.

"That's easy. He must have bugged the garage when he sent Cabe the tie and the note during his trial." Sylvester replied offhandedly, his brain working out the next step already. "He'd easily be able to watch and listen as we went about our lives. It wouldn't take much to send something to disrupt the… way… we…" he slowed down as the sudden realisation dawned on him. The only disruption that had followed Cabe's trial had been…

"Flo." Paige confirmed in a hard voice as she lifted her head in realisation.

"You think she was a mole for Collins?" Happy asked as she turned to take part in the conversation again. And Toby suddenly saw it.

"Yes. It could only be her. She's emotionally awkward like us, so an accurate read on tells would be impossible for me to read on her. She's like Walter but with less patience and I still haven't managed to crack _that_ cranial mess. She's the only suspect we have that could have pulled it off." Toby replied, and then mentally kicked himself for not seeing it sooner.

"Could she have been manipulated herself?" Sylvester asked, unsure if he could really see Florence as a bad guy even after she and Walter had broken his heart. Intentional or not.

"It's possible, but I dunno." Toby muttered in response, his brain going over all the twitches, and unconscious habitual behaviours as he mentally analysed the blonde chemist's every move in his eidetic memory. He reeled through hours of interactions, and days of intense and care free events where she had been included. Looking for something, for some slight small hint of subterfuge.

And there it was; a slight hint of something that could be more than it seemed at the time.

"I think I got it." He whispered, eyes still locked inside his own mind when he did, so he failed to see Sylvester's hopeful look turn depressive. Toby came back to the room and found three expectant eyes watching him, so he began to explain. "The night of the argument." He started, "She walked in and said she'd had no idea what she'd walked into. That was true, the confusion was to genuine to be faked. So, I used that as a comparative marker against the rest of that moment. Everything was fine until she declared her love for Walter, those tears weren't for Walter. She was glancing at you Sylvester. And she kept apologizing but the apologies weren't just for ruining Walter and Paige's relationship… She was hiding something I just don't know what yet." He finished. It was a long shot, and a hard-to-really-believe conclusion but his gut said he was right, and he needed to find the chemist to prove his theory. "We need to push her on this. I need to see her reaction to being accused because that will tell me if I'm right." He added, looking around the room for any agreements or arguments.

"Even if she wasn't aware, she is still the only connecting factor in all of this." Happy agreed. "Whether she was willingly part of the plan or just a pawn, she still has answers we need. I'm in." She added.

"But what if she's innocent?" Sylvester asked. Toby felt his heart go out to the poor mathematician. It was obvious he was still crushing hard on Florence, but the facts had to be put first in this one.

"Then she'll understand and want to help us." Toby replied, in a placating tone. It wasn't a lie, If Florence really was innocent she'd be horrified to learn she might have been used and would want to help fix this mess. But his gut disagreed with something about her being completely innocent.

"Either way, we need to speak with her before we can figure this thing out." Paige growled and Toby watched her with a drop of concern as she led the way out of the waiting room. It was easy to pin your own guilt onto someone else, and Paige was truly feeling a lot of guilt at the moment. It was dangerous to keep thinking that way, but Toby valued his life and he knew Paige would rip him a new one if he tried to intervene at that precise moment.

For now, he'd stay out of her sights until it became detrimental to the solving of the plethora of problems that they currently had on their plates.

* * *

"Collins?" Walter asked, his confusion blurring even more. He moved to sit up but when he tried to move his hands underneath him, he came across a resistance. A quick glance down found his wrists encased in leather restraints that were secured to the bed itself. Another glance at his feet found the same restraints around his ankles, and another singular strap going across his upper chest. He was on a psychiatric's restraint gurney and he was strapped down tightly too.

"You're not looking too good Walt." Collins said as he moved into the room, and Walter unconsciously tried to scoot away from his approach. Collins stopped at the flinch with a disappointed look upon his face. "Don't look at me like that Walt. This isn't my fault." He insisted. "You're the one who tried to kill yourself." He said with a 'not-my-fault' kind of attitude. "I had to rescue your sorry ass from what those monkeys did to you." He added, his voice was getting louder as he spoke and for the first time since the team had abandoned him, Walter felt a sliver of self preservation slip in to his chest.

"They're not…" He tried weakly. He wasn't sure why he felt the need to defend his old friends, they had hurt him pretty badly. He knew he'd been hard to work with, even harder to be a friend to and was practically unlovable but he'd had some amazing times with them. Solved some amazing cases and saved a lot of people too. They weren't bad people, just because they'd hurt him. If that were true, it would mean he was an awful person… but then maybe he was an awful person and just didn't know it?

"They are mindless monkeys, Walter." Collins repeated. "You built them up to what they are today, you gave them a purpose, and the guidance to be who they are. And how did they repay you?" He asked as he circled the bed. Walter tried to think of an argument against it, but his mind was going both a-mile-a-minute and not-fast-enough at the same time. He was confused. Why was Collins here? Where was he exactly? Why was he arguing for his friends? Were they still his friends?

"They helped me a lot of times." He finally settled on, because out of all the confusion he was feeling, he knew that if he were in trouble, even now with them not being on speaking terms, they'd do everything in their power to help him. "And they'll help me even now. They're good people. Better than you." He added, his conviction was starting to return as the situation started to make sense.

And in a sudden bout of clarity, he realised that his perspective had changed. The fear of existing without his friends had disappeared because in his defence of them, he'd realised that what he'd said was true. The former members of team Scorpion would never truly abandon him to someone else's mercy. They may not willingly help him with problems that didn't put his life on the line, but if he was ever truly in need, like he found himself to be now, they would move heaven and earth to help him.

"But Walter, they're the ones who put you here…" Collins said in a softer voice. And Walter's thoughts came to a crashing halt. Confusion hit him hard. "Don't you remember?" Collins asked. Walter wasn't sure he wanted to. He couldn't believe his friends would put him in a place like… where was he again?

As he looked around the room Collins picked up on the train of thought that Walter was having and seized the moment.

"Do you even know where you are Walter?" He asked, circling back around to the other side of the bed. Walter stared at him in reserved horror. He was almost afraid to ask.

"Where…" he tried, "Where am I?" Deep down he recognised the pattern of white padded walls, bright fluorescent lights, two-way mirrored glass, and the smell of clean clinical ventilated air.

"You're in a sanitarium Walter."


	7. Ch6: Misperceptions and Misinterpretatio

**Mind Games**

**Summary:** What do you get when you cross a depressed emotionally ill-equipped genius with a logical acidic solution?

**Disclaimer:** This is a fan-fiction story of the TV Series: Scorpion, and is in no way affiliated with the actual story/series in any of the aforementioned media. All characters and other materials related to the show that are used are not intended to infringe on any Copyrights. Elemental-Zer0 takes sole responsibility for any mistakes or offence that may be taken but truly not meant. However, any characters that are not related to any copyrights are copyrighted to Elemental-Zer0, as are any adaptions/variations to the plot set out in the original author's story/plot.

**Authors Note: **Chapter six for you all!

Let me know what you think, but no flames please. If you have any criticism to make please do it _politely_ otherwise I shall ignore your words. (It's happened before, I'm sorry to say, and I hadn't even posted any real chapters…)

* * *

_**Chapter Six: Misperceptions and Misinterpretations**_

"_You're in a sanatorium Walter_."

The blood left his face and Walter felt very dizzy and sick. He let his head fall back onto the uncomfortable pillow and found the bland white ceiling swirling from view.

His friends had put him in a psychiatric nut house. Why would they do that? Why would they section him? It didn't make sense, where was the logic?

"Don't you remember what happened, Walter?" Collins asked, his voice had turned soft, as though he cared about Walter's feelings. As though he alone could understand the utter betrayal that Walter was supposed to feel right now. "You tried to kill yourself." Collins said, and Walter remembered that. He remembered the beaker of acid, the note he'd left… "They found you before you could do it. Wrestled you to the ground and had to lock you away in here for the good of the world." Collins continued. But that just confused Walter even more. If he didn't commit the crime of suicide, then for what reason was he institutionalised?

"Look at what they've done to you Walter." Collins cooed, "As if abandoning you wasn't enough, they've locked you away from the world and all its excitement and problems." He cooed again in a taunting but placating manner, "What will you fill your time with now?" He asked.

Walter could feel his mind reeling with the implications of what Collins was saying. The thought of the betrayal alone was heart-breaking to him but he felt himself close off to the emotion. His cold shoulder hung low in the blow of the possibility that those he'd trusted had done such a thing.

But something just didn't feel right...

It was the same feeling he had when he knew something was trying to trick his brain. This whole scenario just didn't make sense to him. He didn't remember taking the acid or even attempting to. It had just sat there, in the beaker, on his night stand. Writing a suicide note and contemplating the action involved was not grounds for incarceration. The least would be mandatory therapy in a shrinks' office.

All the facts pointed to one conclusion; this place he'd found himself in wasn't real. It felt very similar to the dream he'd had when he'd fallen down the stairs and hit his head last Christmas.

"I knew you were too clever to trick this easily." Collins said, his tone of voice had turned serious and the room he was in was suddenly very different. Walter unexpectedly found himself in a dark grey room, not unlike those of a holding cell or an interrogation room in a police station. He was standing too now, free of any restraints and he was dressed in a pair of loose fitted grey trousers and a t shirt that he didn't remember owning.

The confusion took him for a moment before Collins spoke again. "The look on your face." He grinned smugly. "Trying so hard to make sense of the senseless." The man taunted. "Come on smarty-pants. Can you figure this out?" he cajoled.

Walter closed his eyes for a moment, trying to work out what was going on. There was no equipment in the room to induce any hallucinations. There were no signs of trauma on his head, so a head wound was not at fault here. That only meant that this place wasn't real either. His eyes opened again in abject disbelief. He was still in a dream.

"There you go." Collins said as though he could read Walter's mind. But that was impossible. "Is it, Walter?" Collins asked and a chill shot down Walter's dream-self spine. The incredulity was obvious but his brain was already trying to work out how it was possible. "In this place Walter, I am god. I know every thought you have. I know every memory you relive. I control everything here." Collins claimed and to prove his point, he snapped his fingers and suddenly they were in the garage. The familiar ambience of Walter's only sanctuary was a painful reminder of what he missed. Happy was at her workstation clanging away with some mechanical invention of hers, Sylvester was tapping away at his computer no doubt coding a new save-the-nerd type of game, while Toby and Cabe were in a heated debate over old ways of thinking and the nuances of the new.

And then there was Paige; beautiful, iridescent Paige who was sat at her desk working on a plethora of administrative paperwork like she'd always do on a quiet day.

"This isn't real either." Walter said unnecessarily but he felt the need to cement the fact out loud to be sure.

"Oh, but it could be." Collins replied. As he appeared next to Walter in the room. No one looked up as the two men spoke. It was as if they didn't know he was there. "This is what life would be like if you had gone through with your attempt. See how nothing has changed for them? How they took the garage back and just went back to work like nothing had happened?" Collins said, attempting to guide Walter's thoughts to distance himself further from the team the genius had cultivated. "Do they look the slightest bit upset that you're gone?" Collins asked, his voice a little softer now, as though trying to coax Walter to follow the train of thought.

Tears brimmed Walter's eyes as he stared at the familiar and homely scene, a scene he'd seen too many times to count. "Don't you feel upset, betrayed even, by these mindless monkeys?" Collins asked, and while Walter did feel a pang of it, the feeling that overpowered that pang of betrayal was nostalgia. The longing he felt for this calm, idyllic scene hurt so badly.

He wasn't accustomed to feeling these types of emotions, and wasn't sure how to react but some part of him, deep down inside seemed to understand that just watching the scene was enough. It instilled in him a kind of peace that he'd been missing for a while now. Looking at his friends, he understood that it was possible to have this again. It might not happen tomorrow or next week, but eventually the opportunity to apologise and have his friends back was still there.

"No." He replied serenely. His eyes never leaving Paige's apparition. "They're not monsters, they were just hurting, like I was." He said, unsure of who he was speaking to anymore.

A frustrated growl echoed behind him before Collins snapped his fingers again and the scene changed once more. Paige and the others disappeared and Walter was suddenly left alone in the garage. It was silent, and still. The hairs on the back of his neck pricked up at the eerie and unnerving feeling of the place now. This wasn't his sanctuary anymore.

There was a slight echo in the silence; voices barely making it to his ears. They grew louder until he could finally make out what was being said.

"_You lied to me Walter!"_

"_You made her fall in love with you!"_

"_What were you thinking Walter?" _

The voices were suddenly too loud and the insults and verbal attacks were too much. Walter found himself covering his ears and falling to his knees as the voices of his friends deafened him and cut through him like a hot knife through butter.

This… this was unbearable. Living this moment all over again. It was utter torture. The light that he'd seen before where he could easily imagine them all being friends again was rapidly losing its luminosity and as it did, the garage grew darker and darker.

"_And if I'm being honest with myself then…"_ Paige's voice broke through clear and strong and Walter recognised the comment she was saying. It was the one that had really torn him to shreds. Tears fell freely from his eyes as he squeezed them shut against what he knew was coming.

"_I don't even know if you completely satisfy me."_

* * *

Florence hadn't been expecting any visitors at her lab all day, so it was a surprise when the door was almost knocked off its hinges with the intensity that her apparent visitor was knocking with. She muttered oaths of terror and judgement as she made her way to the front door of her lab and pulled the door open aggressively. Only to stop short in shock at seeing who her visitors were.

Paige's wrathful rage was like some legendary goddess reigning fire down upon those too unworthy to look upon her beauty, and Florence certainly felt very unworthy after what she'd done to the she-devil incarnate on her door step and Walter's relationship.

"Paige…" She said in surprise. Then stepped backwards and Paige stepped forward, without invitation, into the lab. Her body language had the confidence of a woman who one could not say no to. Behind her, Happy and Toby followed the walking scorned with a slightly less aggressive attitude, and then lastly, sweet Sylvester stood awkwardly for a beat before hesitantly entering the lab too, unable to look her in the eye.

Florence was a little shocked and overwhelmed, but she'd been in the firing line of bullies all her life, now was apparently no different.

"To what do I owe this…" She fumbled for a word, then settled with; "honour?" She wasn't sure why the four people who had walked out of Walter's life – seemingly due to her own actions – were now gracing her lab with their ominous presence.

She closed the door behind them and turned to face them with her bravest face on. She deserved a lot of retribution from these people, and for a while now had been waiting for the abuse to come forward. Now it was apparently time.

"Does the name Mark Collins, mean anything to you?" Toby asked without preamble. The question was not what she'd expected, and it showed on her face. Toby studied her reaction as though looking for something specific, which with what she knew about his area of specialty was most likely what he was doing.

And of course, Mark Collins was a name that resonated with her. It also apparently showed on her face if Toby's widening eyes were anything to go by.

"You do know him!" He remarked with a confident voice and that was all it took for Paige to start toward her with a menacing rage.

"You little…" Whatever she was about to say, Florence would never know because Toby had reacted quickly and pulled Paige back before she could get more than two steps toward her.

"Paige wait, we need answers, not blood remember?" Toby warned, and as soon as Paige stopped struggling to break free, he turned his knowing gaze back to Florence. Her fear of the name must have shone through to him like a neon bulb because the sympathy in his eyes were genuine. "You're afraid of him, aren't you." Toby continued, and it wasn't a question. "I can see it, the flash of panic, your sweaty palms, fast breathing and the defensive stance you have right now; all indicators of someone you fear." He'd hit the nail right on the head.

It was all a little too much to handle. The aggressive door knocking, the demon witch vying for her death by ocular combustion, and then that name… She felt the hot tears slip down her cheeks before finally finding her voice.

"What the hell do you people want from me?!" She all but screamed, "First you barge into my home like you own the place, and then… then you… bring up that name out of the blue like you… want me to… to be guilty of his crimes too…" She vented, her only defence at this point was either scare them away or escape herself. The shocked faces of the four people she'd hurt with her declaration of love to Walter was too much to cope with and before she knew it, she'd flung the door open and ran outside. Happy and Paige moved to chase her, but Toby held them back.

"No wait, she's not going far. Her keys are on the hook still. I think she just needs some space." He said, "I'll go and…" He started again but Sylvester interrupted him.

"No, I'll go." He said, "You stay here, see if you can find anything that might show us if Collins was involved in anything here." He added and moved to the door that Florence had fled through. "And er, don't come out until I say its ok." He said as an afterthought.

Toby gave the man a sympathetic wince as the mathematician disappeared outside. "He's still head over heels for her." He commented but it didn't take a genius to see that.


	8. Ch7: Misdirections Reprise

**Mind Games**

**Summary:** What do you get when you cross a depressed emotionally ill-equipped genius with a logical acidic solution?

**Disclaimer:** This is a fan-fiction story of the TV Series: Scorpion, and is in no way affiliated with the actual story/series in any of the aforementioned media. All characters and other materials related to the show that are used are not intended to infringe on any Copyrights. Elemental-Zer0 takes sole responsibility for any mistakes or offence that may be taken but truly not meant. However, any characters that are not related to any copyrights are copyrighted to Elemental-Zer0, as are any adaptions/variations to the plot set out in the original author's story/plot.

**Authors Note: **Chapter seven! I'm on a roll with this one!

Let me know what you think, but no flames please. If you have any criticism to make please do it _politely_ otherwise, I shall ignore your words. (It's happened before, I'm sorry to say, and I hadn't even posted any real chapters…)

* * *

_**Chapter Seven: Misdirections Reprise**_

Sylvester found Florence down the outside alley on the opposite side of her lab to the garage. She was sat on an empty crate with her head in her hands crying as though the world had just ended. He approached cautiously and sat down beside. She didn't move or run away which was a good sign, so he quietly held out a handkerchief to her as a peace offering. He wasn't sure yet how to handle her behaviour in the lab. He didn't want to think of her as a villain, but she knew Mark Collins. And she was also on Walter's current team Scorpion when he was kidnapped. It was all just a bit too suspicious. He wanted to believe that sweet, adorably awkward Flo wasn't the bad guy, which was why he'd volunteered to go after her and get some answers.

It felt more than awkward, especially considering her confession to Walter which had led to the destruction of team Scorpion. It had thoroughly broken his heart to hear her say what she had said. And Walter hadn't exactly discouraged her from developing feelings for him. He was still angry about that but his worry for Walter's safety was currently overriding his anger. With what he'd seen of Cabe's wounds, and knowing how easily Collins was able to get inside Walter's head, his fear for his friend was all he had capacity to process right now. It wasn't difficult to imagine what Collins was doing to his friend.

After a minute or two, she took the handkerchief before blurting out what had her so upset.

"He has my sister." She admitted in a fit of sobs and tears. "And, if I don't do what he says, he's going to kill her." She added and her tears came faster as she hunched over herself again. Sylvester's heart almost stopped in shock then grew double its size in sympathy. He awkwardly took her shoulders under his arm in a strange type of side hug, in an attempt to show emotional support. Awkward as it may have been considering their angles in relation to one another, she leaned in almost instantly, craving the comfort of another person over a burden that had been bothering her for some time.

"He told me to say that I loved Walter. He wanted me to break them up. I didn't want to do it." She cried into his shoulder prompting Sylvester to hold her closer to comfort her. "And now they all hate me, and I still have no idea where she is." She finished and wailed hard into Sylvester's shoulder. He couldn't help but squeeze her close as his heart ached at the sound of her distress.

Against what he'd asked, when the trio inside heard her cries, all three had rushed outside presumably assuming something horrible had happened. And in a way it had, but not in the sense that they had expected. For a moment, no one moved. They just watched as Sylvester held her close and rocked the distraught chemist back and forth until she could claim her senses again. What more could they do at this point?

When Florence had finally wrested control back from her emotions, it was Paige who stepped forward. Her stride was confident but lacked any ill will this time. Florence couldn't look her in the eye.

"Why didn't you say something?" Paige asked. Her voice was monotonous, and it was hard to read her emotional state.

"He has the whole place wired. He can see and hear everything you do and say in the garage. He has my placed bugged too." She said weakly. "At first I wasn't sure if I could trust you either." She added.

"And what about the times we weren't at the garage?" Paige asked, and it was a valid question. She'd had every opportunity while out on the field with them during their many cases to pull someone aside and tell them what predicament she'd found herself in. So why hadn't she?

Florence took a deep breath to calm herself. Of course, she was going to be met with suspicion. Her situation wasn't exactly a text book ransom.

"He told me that one of you was a spy for him." She said, still unsure of that were true or not. "He said one of you worked for him and if I told one of you, I'd never know if I told the right person. I still don't know if that's true but I figure it's too late to matter much now." She said. "I stopped receiving calls and texts from Mark the same day you all took off. I haven't heard about my sister since then." Her face scrunched up in a morose keen. "And I don't think I ever will again." She stammered out, trying to stop herself from crying again but the stress and pain of it all was just too overwhelming.

It was then that Paige crouched down to Florence's level and took her hands in her own. Florence looked up sharply, eyes red and weeping, cheeks blotchy and glistening, and a shocked expression of concern upon her face. And staring into those eyes of a desperately lost young woman, Paige just couldn't hate her any more.

"I'm sorry." Paige said softly. "You were put in an impossible situation. I don't blame you Flo." She continued and gave the chemist a watery smile of her own. "We'll help you find your sister. Collins if going to pay for all of this." She added and gave Florence's hands a reassuring squeeze. "I promise." She said, her voice had hardened on that note and her eyes promised retribution to anyone stood in her way.

A fresh well of tears pricked at Florence's eyes as she nodded in agreement.

Toby took that moment to step forward then and spoke up. "Flo, there's a lot you need to catch up on, and I'm sure we all don't want to talk about it all out in the open like this. Seeing as the garage and your lab are compromised, I think Kovelsky's is a good place to catch up. How does that sound?" He was careful not to sound too patronising, but rather keep his tone placating and soothing. His mastery of walking that fine line had proven fruitful when she gave a quick nod in agreement.

"That would be a much more favourable location to talk." She said and allowed Sylvester to help her up from the crate. As the others all made their way across the street, Toby gave a quick sweeping glance at the garage next door. It looked as though there was nothing wrong with it. Like a small bomb hadn't blown up in it only a few hours ago. He couldn't even see the smashed-out windows from this angle either which sounded about right because the windows that had smashed were the ones around the back of the garage and they were pretty hard to see from the street.

If Florence had been out at the time, it was very likely that she still had no idea a bomb had gone off in her neighbours building. Which meant she had no idea Cabe was in the hospital, or that Walter was missing.

A shiver of worry crept up Toby's spine as his train of thought lingered on Walter and the idea that Collins had him… memories of his own abduction crept into his mind and he shuddered. He'd been in plenty of dangerous and life-threatening scenarios in his short career with Scorpion, many of which he was able to brush off and move on from. But the memory of that beaker of acid hovering over his face… the fact that he couldn't look away from it even if he wanted to… the doubt that his friends could even save him in time before the floss snapped and he'd drown in acid…

It had been the single, most scariest moment he could ever hope to forget.

And the mad man that had put him in that position now had a mentally vulnerable Walter, most likely in a similar mind-fuck scenario.

But something else suddenly dawned on him. During that time when he'd been held by the mad man, Collins had claimed he was holding Toby for ransom. He'd wanted Walter's research on BBI. The brain to brain interface research he'd been studying for his sister in order to create a brain save for her. It had sounded like a longshot kind of deal at the time but Toby had watched Walter make quite a bit of headway into the study and even had Toby believing it was possible for a while. But then after Meghan passed away, Walter didn't have the drive or the motivation to continue.

Walter obviously hadn't given his research to Collins though, which irked Toby a little if he was honest, but he understood that the ramifications would have been dire had Walter just handed it over. And then there was the fact that Walter had deduced that the Collins wasn't really after the research in the end either.

But then what was he after? An elaborate revenge plan on Toby was too petty for Collins. He was a big picture kind of guy. There was always a reason, but that time hadn't yielded an answer. He just kidnapped Toby, asked for the research as a ruse, set up ninja warrior death trap and trapped Toby in it before taking off. He couldn't imagine Collins would risk himself like that for some petty revenge on Toby.

Unless it wasn't a ruse. Walter and Collins had worked on numerous scientific theories that ranged from ludicrous to way-out-there and it had gotten particularly bad toward the end when Walter had spiralled down the rabbit hole badly. The point here though, was that there were so many different projects he could have picked out, but Collins had singled out that one project. It didn't make sense that there wouldn't be a reason for it.

Toby's eyes widened as he slowly realised the truth. It wasn't a ruse. Collins really had wanted the BBI research. He just wasn't fussed about when or how he got it, which is why Walter had concluded that he wasn't really after it. It had been a sleight of hand via meticulous detailed planning. And of course, Walter wouldn't pick up on it, he hadn't been there in the warehouse when Collins had made the call for it. He'd only heard him via radio phone. And Walter wasn't a world class behaviourist like Toby was, so his judgement on the matter would be flawed too, especially since the man had no skills with reading between the lines of human behaviour. Walter was as socially inept as they came.

Which meant that Collins really was after the research and now had an emotionally distraught Walter trapped who knows where, and doing who knows what to him to get him to talk…

"Not good."

* * *

Just before Toby managed to catch up to the group, Paige's phone gave a chirrup of a ring which took her by surprise. She quickly answered the unknown number and found the hospital receptionist on the other end.

His message hadn't been inspiring.

"Oh god." She murmured as she took the phone away from her ear. Tears fell before she was even aware of her own emotions creeping out. Happy, Sylvester and Florence stopped walking and turned to her. She looked like someone had just died… and as one, Happy and Sylvester felt their blood turn to ice. It wasn't hard to guess who that someone could have been. Florence just stared in confusion but deigned to stay quiet.

"What?" Happy asked sharply, her gut telling her she was going to regret asking.

"That was the hospital." Paige managed to choke out. Happy's gut clenched further and all three listeners paled. "Cabe's..." Paige tried but felt her throat tighten. "He's…" she tried again but still couldn't get her voice to repeat what she'd been told.

Several long seconds passed before Happy snapped, "He's what?" But all Paige could do was stare at her with tears now streaming down her face. The utter devastation on her face was all it took for Happy to come to the only logical conclusion.

"No…"


	9. Ch8: Losing Ground

**Mind Games**

**Summary:** What do you get when you cross a depressed emotionally ill-equipped genius with a logical acidic solution?

**Disclaimer:** This is a fan-fiction story of the TV Series: Scorpion, and is in no way affiliated with the actual story/series in any of the aforementioned media. All characters and other materials related to the show that are used are not intended to infringe on any Copyrights. Elemental-Zer0 takes sole responsibility for any mistakes or offence that may be taken but truly not meant. However, any characters that are not related to any copyrights are copyrighted to Elemental-Zer0, as are any adaptions/variations to the plot set out in the original author's story/plot.

**Authors Note: **Chapter eight! I might even finish this story!

Let me know what you think, but no flames please. If you have any criticism to make please do it _politely_ otherwise I shall ignore your words. (It's happened before, I'm sorry to say, and I hadn't even posted any real chapters…)

* * *

_**Chapter Eight: Losing Ground**_

"_I don't even know if you completely satisfy me." _

Mark Collins grinned at the monitor. That line had been the last nail in the coffin.

The DreamScaper software he'd managed to create with what little he could find of Walter's brain data transfer research he'd been doing for Meghan, was working relatively well. The readouts on the monitor in front of him were rudimentary at best but it was still telling him what Walter was thinking of. It would be better if he could map what his old friend was seeing and hearing, but then if he had that, he wouldn't need Walter. For now, he was only getting surface thoughts and decisions in the form of words on a screen. And really, it could only be Walter's mind that the machine could read, because it was Walter's thought matrix that they'd initially used to map the interface and programme the machine to recognise and translate. It wasn't like they were inundated with volunteers to be a guinea pig.

So, he had to kidnap his old friend. Walter hadn't exactly given him much of a choice on that front. The thoughts of suicide had surprised and disappointed Collins if he were honest. Surprised that Walter had managed to rise to that level of EQ and disappointed in a waste of talent and ingenuity.

So really, for his own safety of course, Collins has taken Walter and placed him in a dream state that he couldn't escape from and thus where he couldn't kill himself either. Only way out was if Collins let him out. It was the most secure prison he could build for an intuitive genius with MacGyver tendencies. Anyone who knew Walter O'Brien, would know that just throwing the man into even the smallest and most impenetrable prison would only slow the man down from escaping. Eventually he'd get himself out and then the counter attack would follow. The man had successfully broken into and out of Fort Knox twice in the same day for crying out loud, it wasn't easy keeping Walter pinned down unless he wanted to be.

This prison though; the DreamScaper Collins had built and programmed using their old research (the data they'd collected before Walter had taken the research to the next level), was the best prison for someone like Walter O'Brien. The escaped convict turned to look at the patient on the custom designed bed beside the monitor.

The bed was set inside a large clear tube, not unlike an isolation unit in a hospital. It was secured tight and had a set of locks on the outside of the unit to be extra safe. It was just big enough to house a fully-grown adult with various medical instruments attached. There were physical restraints too in case of software and machine failure.

It had been fully tested out by a feisty, reluctant young woman for a few weeks while he'd worked out the kinks and failures. There had been many. For one, he'd found that he'd had to install a suspension system to counter any vigorous struggling. The sharp jerking movements his test subject had exercised had allowed the leather straps to tear free. That was when he'd installed the flexi-steel in the restraints too. Tearing them now would be nigh on impossible.

He'd also had to make adjustments to the IV line in and the nasal cannula as a result of his active test subject. The IV line had easily ripped itself free of the woman's arm and had lain useless, leaking precious sedatives onto the bed. To counter that issue, Collins had fashioned a secure strap that wound over the IV line in the woman's arm and protected it from falling out in the following tests. The strap had then been secured to the bed base too as an extra measure against possible escape.

The nasal cannula had stumped him for a while. The elasticated head band he'd originally used had easily slipped off when his test subject and twisted and jerked around. It had been dislodged easily which wasn't conducive to his plans at all. He needed something a little more secure. A breathing mask was also just as useless for the same reasons, and an intubator was messy and inconvenient if he needed the subject to wake up and talk. Which, with Walter, it was possible.

So how do you solve that issue?

He didn't.

Instead, he changed the process of patient installation. He made sure the subject was sedated first before installing the nasal cannula. It worked perfectly.

The electrode and the brainwave monitors however, had been the real head-scratcher. Secured movement was critical with the electrodes so that Collins could manually search for other areas of the patient's brain to stimulate and record data from. It was in a moment of surgical epiphany that Collins came across his solution to this one; drill bits. And it had been inspired by one Happy Quinn or Curtis… or whatever her married name was now. Watching her through the mini spy bots he'd placed in the garage, as she drilled into Walter's skull to relieve the build-up of pressure in his old friends' brain had been the break through Collins had needed.

Threads.

Specifically screw threads. The spiral screw design, a few ball bearings, and several flexi washers was the perfect solution. He fashioned them from a half inch diameter steel pipe with a thread on the outside surface. The hole in the middle of the pipe was moulded to a concave curvature, within which he'd placed a ball bearing with a straight hole through the middle, not unlike a bead on a piece of jewellery. His electrode probe would then thread through the hole in the ball bearing, and with a few strategically placed washers along the probe length, the whole design would allow for a flexible secured probe with which to explore the patient's brain.

It was pure genius.

And it was working perfectly. The real Walter lay inside the machine, looking pale and completely unresponsive to the world underneath all of the equipment and apparatus that had been hooked up to him. The nasal cannula was in place, forcing a mix of hallucinogenic gasses into his lungs which allowed Collins to manipulate the lucidity of Walter's dream-state. The IV line was secured under the strap and was feeding a constant drip of high strength sedative straight into Walter's bloodstream. And really, this was the trump card in Collins' Walter-proof prison. If Walter couldn't wake up, Walter couldn't escape.

And finally, the electrode probes had been surgically screwed directly into Walter's skull. Four sets of precisionally mapped electrode probes were scanning and manipulating the parts of Walter's brain that were responsible for sensory input, long term memories, emotional reactions, and sleep. A multitude of surface-connection, brain-wave monitors were also secured around Walter's temples and forehead which were recording Walter's brain functions too.

And, underneath all of the wires, probes, and tubing, Walter was at the absolute mercy of Collins.

The escaped convict smiled at his own brilliance and gave the sleeping man an assessing gaze. It was a pity the man had been reduced to a suicide attempt. Collins had told him that his 'friends' would abandon him eventually. He'd called it long before this mess.

But then, it wasn't really an impressive prediction if he'd instigated the whole thing anyway. His network of spy cams and microphones were tricky to install to begin with. There was never much time when the whole team had vacated the garage. It had taken weeks to set up the whole system. Weeks of sneaking in while no one was around and the odd night visit while Walter (_and sometimes his female cohort too_) had been asleep too. But once he'd got it all set up, it was easy to create subtle suspicions and diversions to manipulate the team.

But if the chatter he'd heard from the lab today was anything to go by, then team Scorpion – _or rather team centipede now_ – were definitely on to him, and were close to formulating a rescue plan. With his hold over Florence no longer iron clad, they'd have access to her phone and start a trace. That was if they didn't go looking for the bugs he'd placed and the wireless transmitter he'd installed to spy on them. While he'd put every precaution he could into place, he knew that eventually they would find him. But that was ok, he just needed enough time to break Walter down enough to get the research data for the BBI. Then phase two of his plans could finally start.

But to do that, he'd need a different diversion to take their attention. He couldn't risk them finding him before Walter had yielded to his machinations. A quick phone call to his 'acquaintance' in the surgery lab had given him the perfect solution. If the poor doctor ever wanted to see his daughter again, he'd sabotage a certain patient's chances of survival by any means necessary.

Collins recognised that his actions were non-refundable. He'd effectively severed ties with the team when Walter had turned him over to the idiots in the asylum right at the start of this whole mess. He'd hated Walter for that but he also knew that with the extra seven IQ points above him, and an intuition even Walter wasn't aware he had, the smarter man was still useful to Collins' current end goal.

So, when the spy bots in the garage showed Walter getting manually close to life's inevitable fate, his hand had been forced. He couldn't have Walter die just yet; he still needed the rest of that research. The search of the garage while he'd been installing spy bots had proven fruitless and Collins had to assume that once Meghan's demise had occurred, Walter had had no reason to keep any of it and had probably destroyed it all. The only place he had left to look was inside Walter's brain. And, once he had what he needed, Walter would also be his first test subject. A compliant, ready-to-please version of Walter who would be at his beck and whim sounded like a nice change of pace. Not that that was the original intent of the research Walter had been doing, but Collins was hoping to make a few adjustments.

He grinned at the thought then turned his attention back to the monitor. First things first though; gotta break Walter down enough to pry the information he needed out of that tricky little brain of his.

Collins' grin widened. Judging by the current state of Walter's readings, that wasn't going to take too long.


	10. Ch9: Misdirection of a Diff Kind reprise

**Mind Games**

**Summary:** What do you get when you cross a depressed emotionally ill-equipped genius with a logical acidic solution?

**Disclaimer:** This is a fan-fiction story of the TV Series: Scorpion, and is in no way affiliated with the actual story/series in any of the aforementioned media. All characters and other materials related to the show that are used are not intended to infringe on any Copyrights. Elemental-Zer0 takes sole responsibility for any mistakes or offence that may be taken but truly not meant. However, any characters that are not related to any copyrights are copyrighted to Elemental-Zer0, as are any adaptions/variations to the plot set out in the original author's story/plot.

**Authors Note: **Chapter Nine! This is seriously the fastest I've ever updated a fanfiction in my entire life of posting updates top this site. Feel honoured! I've already got Chapter 10 and 11 written up. Just going through the final checks before posting.

Let me know what you think, but no flames please. If you have any criticism to make please do it _politely_ otherwise I shall ignore your words. (It's happened before, I'm sorry to say, and I hadn't even posted any real chapters…)

* * *

_**Chapter Nine: Misdirections of a Different Kind reprise**_

Florence felt the first sliver of a new panic take hold.

"What's going on?" She asked, "Why is Cabe in a hospital?" She continued and then added "Why are you crying like that?" And she could feel her own tears well up, her heart had already come to the same logical conclusion Happy had but her mind had yet to accept it.

Toby rushed up then, speaking before he could read the tension. "Guys, it's the BBI! Collins wants Walter's research on… the…" He started but then saw the tears and the desolation hanging thickly in the air. "What?" He asked hesitantly, his own stomach turning. The feeling of cold ice spreading through his veins chilled him to his core as his imagination tried to fill in the gaps.

"Cabe's… not in a good way." Paige finally managed to say. "They said they've done all they can." She continued around a soft sob. "But it won't be enough."

And Toby's world fell flat. That wasn't possible. He'd secured the bleeders. There was no further damage inside. He'd gotten the bullets out. Cabe should be fine. He'd have a few new scars to add to his collection, but he should have easily survived this. It was textbook simple.

What had he missed?

Of course, with Collins involved, it _was_ likely he'd missed something. But what? And if it was a trick Collins had used, it was almost certain that there was a way to reverse it. That's what Collins was all about, setting puzzles to see who was smart enough to figure them out. He loved the impressed and distressed responses to his 'impossible' tests.

But this kink, also served another purpose. The more focused they were on saving Cabe, the less mental prowess they had dedicated to finding Walter. Divide and diminish.

"It's a delay." He finally said, his mind working overtime. "It's a distraction to derail us from finding Walter." He added at their confused faces. A spark of hope lit up in Happy, Sylvester's and Paige's faces but Florence's paled further.

"F-finding Walter…" She stammered. "What-what do you mean 'finding Walter'?" She stumbled over her words and grew paler. Then she turned abruptly to Paige, "And… and why is Cabe in… in the hospital?" She asked again, but her voice was growing softer as she spoke, the fear constricting her throat as she said it.

It dawned on the others then that Florence still had no idea that Cabe had been shot and that Walter was missing.

And they all watched helplessly as she put it all together in her head. Why they'd asked her about Collins… the phone call about Cabe in the hospital… and the comment, 'finding Walter'…

"Collins has Walter." It wasn't a question. "And he's done something to Cabe too." She added, looking reluctantly at the four faces for confirmation. At the looks of utter hopelessness, she had one more observation to make. "Something dreadful."

"We'll fill you in on the way but I gotta get to the hospital now." Toby said as he made to move toward Centipede's office for a car. The others followed with no argument, instead discussing the best possible solution to their issues at hand.

* * *

It was decided that Florence and Sylvester would stay at Centipede's office, running the tracing software Walter had developed on Florence's phone in hopes of finding a location with which to start looking for their missing friend.

They'd surmised that if they found Collins, they'd likely find Walter and quite likely Florence's sister, Abigail too. No one deigned to touch the subject of whether Abigail was still alive. With no evidence, there was no reason to assume the worst but with Collins, it was easy to guess that Abigail had probably outlived her usefulness to him and Collins wasn't about to risk the plans he'd gone to such extreme length to set in motion just because of one loose end.

Meanwhile Toby, Happy and Paige had raced to the hospital to find out what had happened to Cabe. Toby had suspected foul play, and had predicted that he'd need to counter it with a three-step plan to save Cabe.

If it was foul play and Collins was delaying them from focussing their search for Walter, then it meant they all had to work fast. It also meant that there was a mole in the hospital, which meant they'd probably meet some resistance in getting Cabe the help he needed. That's where Paige would come in. She'd use her negotiation skills to distract and outwit anyone attempting to stop them from doing all they could for Cabe. And if that went south, Happy would be creating their escape plan in the back ground. It had been her primary idea, but Toby had advised that a hospital was better equipped to help him figure out what was wrong and fix it. They'd use her escape plan as a last resort, but until then Toby would have to work fast.

Happy took off in the car after dropping Paige and Toby at the entrance. She had work to do.

Meanwhile, Toby and Paige were met in the reception by a haggard looking doctor, and immediately Toby picked up a few red flags and stress indicators in the man's behaviour before he'd even said a word. Something was off with the guy. Was he the mole?

It was likely, but if what they'd learned from Florence was anything to consider, then it was possible that Collins had some leverage over this guy too. This was almost a good thing for them, it meant the guy was good at heart and was susceptible to persuasion if they could convince him that they could find who/whatever Collins was holding over him.

They were led to the same room Cabe had been in when they'd left only a half hour before to find Florence. And in that half hour, Cabe had deteriorated significantly. Both Paige and Toby had to pause at the door in shock. Neither of them recognised the man in the bed as their stoic, hard handed, shield and protector. It was jarring to see the strong, cocky-mouthed man looking so small and frail.

Then Toby was moving.

The man was not well. His lips were blue, breathing laboured and his heart rate was lapsing badly. He could tell just by looking that Cabe's blood pressure was dangerously low, and his oxygen intake was minimal. The possible causes for these symptoms were numerous and it would take too long to figure out what was wrong. Cabe didn't have the time it would take to find out.

Walter didn't have that long either.

_Nor Abigail_, he mentally added.

Toby held a frustrated yell inside as he read the monitors and readouts on the equipment hooked up to their friend. Their number of victims were growing by the minute and they hadn't made any real headway into the actual search yet either. Damn Collins! Damn him to the darkest depths of hell!

"I don't care what your hospital policy says doctor, my friend here is a certified doctor and has more experience with unnatural and strange medical phenomenon than you or your staff could ever hope to imagine!"

'_Go Paige!_' Toby mentally applauded as he searched for whatever sabotage he could imagine would bring about the symptoms that Cabe was exhibiting.

"Dr Curtis is his registered doctor!" He heard Paige say, her voice was hard and intimidating. Toby shivered a little in response.

"But he's my patient in here." The doctor replied, the stress levels in his voice were of desperation, not frustration. There was a heavy accent of fear fluctuating throughout the man's dialogue. Collins had quite the hold over him and he wasn't going to budge without a major fight.

Secretly, he sent a coded message to Happy to start her plan. It was looking like they may have to bail after all. She confirmed the request and went to work.

Toby focused on the equipment hooked up to his friend; blood pressure was dropping a fraction a minute. Something was leaking then. Slowly. But he'd stopped the bleeders in the wounds. His work had been messy and rushed but he was never a shoddy worker. He knew with a confidence that the leak was not from his stitch-work. So, an external force was at play.

"You have no authority over this patient!" Paige responded, her voice had genuine anger and concern in it and Toby just knew that she was going to lose her nerve before Happy had a chance to set up their escape plan.

Toby had to play his last card. He didn't like to gamble with his friends lives on the line like this but his window of opportunity to save Cabe was closing rapidly.

"We know you're working for Collins." He said suddenly, and both Paige and the doctor fell silent. He could practically hear their shock. "We know he's got leverage over you. We know you were told to delay us as much as possible." He continued as he turned to face them with a seriousness that surprised even himself.

"That's not…" The doctor stammered but Toby had his answers. The hesitance, the wide eyes, the short breaths, sweat at the collar and the brow. An idiot could see the guilt.

"It is true. We know. Because he also has our friend." Paige interrupted with a no-nonsense tone. Her voice did hitch a little when she'd said the word 'friend' though and Toby felt the same tug of desperation for Walter.

The doctor froze, the fear on his face was hauntingly familiar to what they were all feeling.

"We're close to finding our missing friend, doc. That's why Collins made you do this, to distract us from getting any closer." He explained, hoping to gain the man's trust. "If we find our friend, it's a safe bet that whatever he's holding over you is there too. But we can't find him if we have to solve the problem you've created for us with our friend here." He said as he gestured to Cabe's prone form on the bed.

Precious seconds wasted by while the doctor wrestled with his trust of these people.

"He has my daughter." He finally admitted brokenly. "She's only two." He added as he completely broke down. Toby was beginning to feel sick. Collins had really gone off the deep end. The possibilities of what he was capable of were tripling by the hour. Kidnapping wasn't above him, he knew from personal experience, but this was getting dangerously out of hand. He could understand targeting Scorpion, but strangers?

And now kids…

Sweat dripped down his brow as the pressure to find them all mounted.

"I know you're feeling very scared right now. I can promise you that we have a plan to rescue our missing people." Paige said carefully. Her empathy was in overdrive today what with Florence's sister, and now a child dragged into this mess. She was beyond grateful that Ralph was staying with Drew for the week, he didn't need to go through this with them all.

"But we need your help to pull this off." Toby added to her comment, pulling her attention back to the room. His gaze flicked to the apparatus that was telling him that his friend was dying.

Several seconds of silence passed. Toby's heart hammered loudly in his own ears and Paige's stomach twisted with tension. Walter, Cabe, Abigail, and now a two-year-old child were in trouble and their lives rested in the hands of one very scared and desperate doctor. The consequences if he refused, and chose to trust Collins to hold up his end of their blackmail deal, were going to be devastating.

"I…" the doctor started but halted.

Toby's heart almost stopped.

Paige's breath hitched in her throat.

"I'm sorry…"


	11. Ch10: Bedtime Nightmares

**Mind Games**

**Summary:** What do you get when you cross a depressed emotionally ill-equipped genius with a logical acidic solution?

**Disclaimer:** This is a fan-fiction story of the TV Series: Scorpion, and is in no way affiliated with the actual story/series in any of the aforementioned media. All characters and other materials related to the show that are used are not intended to infringe on any Copyrights. Elemental-Zer0 takes sole responsibility for any mistakes or offence that may be taken but truly not meant. However, any characters that are not related to any copyrights are copyrighted to Elemental-Zer0, as are any adaptions/variations to the plot set out in the original author's story/plot.

**Authors Note: **Chapter Ten! So, my plot is slowing down a little, apologies if this starts to get a little rushed or unexciting. Beginning to feel like I've lost Walter's character a little too. What do you think? Is he too out of character in this?

Let me know what you think, but no flames please. If you have any criticism to make please do it _politely_ otherwise I shall ignore your words. (It's happened before, I'm sorry to say, and I hadn't even posted any real chapters…)

* * *

_**Chapter Ten: Bedtime Nightmares**_

"I'm sorry." Those words were almost too much to hear, and Toby and Paige felt the comment like a physical blow.

"I'm so sorry. I didn't know who to turn to." And just like that, the relief almost dropped the two members of Centipede where they stood. The guy was just apologising for his part in the sabotage, not that we was refusing to help them.

Toby clutched at his chest in a futile effort to slow his own heartbeat down. Paige hadn't faired much better either, and three more sighs of relief echoed over the comms too.

"It's ok." Toby breathed out through a stiff jaw, adrenalin forcing his muscles to tense in anticipation of the next steps they needed to make. "Just tell me what you did so we can reverse it." He said and stared over at the tearful doctor. The man nodded vigorously.

"Yes, but you can't keep him here. We need to get him somewhere safe." He said ominously. "And I can't come with you." He added. Paige found herself frowning in confusion, but Toby had already figured a close approximation of what he'd meant.

"There's someone here watching you," The doctor looked up sharply at him, confirmation and confusion clear in his expression. Which then turned to a flash of fear and uncertainty which Toby picked up on instantly. "..and you don't know who it is." Toby added for the benefit of the others listening in. "Hear that Happy? Be careful." He said loudly for the comms to pick up. He waited with bated breath for Happy to respond, to confirm she hadn't already come across trouble.

"Copy that." She said and her voice was a welcome relief. Something was going right for a change. The first so far in this difficult case. "I'm in the south west elevator with a cadaver and a wheelchair. Should be an easy swap. Car's round the back now too." She added as an afterthought. And both Toby and Paige gave a sigh of relief much to the confusion of the doctor stood with them. Of course, he couldn't hear Happy.

"It's ok. We have an escape plan." Paige reassured him.

"I need to know what you did doc; these vitals are still dropping." Toby piped up expectantly. The doctor moved then, over to the bed and to right side of the mattress where he pulled out a half-filled blood bag that had been collecting a slow bleed from a secretly place intravenous needle at Cabe's thigh. If it had been left, it would have brought on complications but once the bag had filled, the flow would have stopped and Cabe would have survived.

This alone had been a risk on the doctor's part and Toby stared openly at the man. The doctor hadn't been able to really risk a life under his care. The doctor looked at him sheepishly.

"You took a big risk there." Toby said, his voice was thick with the implications of what this defiance could mean for the man's daughter if Collins ever found out. "Thank you." He added and started to unhook several monitors from the wall mounts and hung them from the bed rails.

"Yes well, you can thank me by saving my daughter." The doctor replied and finished packing up the bed for transport. "And knocking me out in the elevator." He added with a reluctance that any man would have against the idea of willingly being hurt to the point of losing consciousness. Toby slowed his movements for a moment, letting the meaning sink in before he understood. He gave a nod, letting the man know he'd got the message.

"Paige get the doors." Toby asked without room for arguments. Predictably she did not argue, instead she held the doors open and followed closely as the two doctors _moved_.

"Happy, we're on our way." She said under her breath as they took off down the halls.

"Copy that."

* * *

"How long should this be taking?" Florence asked, as she paced the office of the recently formed Centipede Partnership. It wasn't the same as the garage, and if Sylvester was completely honest, he didn't think there would be anywhere that could capture the ambience and sanctity of Scorpion's headquarters.

A lot had happened in the garage, both good and bad. They'd always survived the turbulent times too, so this new office had been a jarring change that hadn't made him feel very comfortable. He'd pushed past that though in his anger and heartache over the woman pacing the floor before his desk.

His feelings were scattered and all over the place when it came to her. He still dearly loved her, irrational as that sounded, it was the truth. No one had quite affected his heart the same way Meghan had. She'd been one of a kind, and thus was irreplaceable. But he also knew what she'd tell him now if she could; 'Don't waste your love on a dead girl. Find someone who makes you feel happy and nervous and excited all in one.' He glanced at Florence who stopped her pacing and stared at him. He felt his heart flutter, his lungs constrict, and his palms go sweaty. All boxes were checked in that area.

"Sylvester?" She asked. And he snapped back to reality, averting his gaze back to the computer screen before him and tapping a few keys out of nervousness.

"Uh," he replied unhelpfully as he checked the speed of the search program and then did a quick calculation under his breath. "With the speed of the search going at five hundred bits per second, divided by the number of cell towers in LA which is four hundred as of the last maintenance checks two weeks ago, I would put the waiting time for completion to be around twenty-two hours and twenty-three minutes." He said aloud. Florence's slumped shoulders told him that it wasn't what she'd wanted to hear. It also wasn't quick enough for those lives depending on this software succeeding.

"Can you speed it up any Sly? Kind of on the clock with this one." Toby's voice echoed across the loudspeaker in the office. He sounded a little out of breath and Sylvester could imagine that pushing Cabe around on a heavy bed would tire even the more athletically inclined.

"Already on it." He replied distractedly as he focused on the code scrolling across his screen. He wasn't as fast with this as Walter or Ralph would be and was prone to mistakes if he rushed too much. "You know I'm not as fast with coding as Walter or…" then an idea hit him. "Paige, has Ralph still got the laptop we gave him for Christmas?" He asked suddenly over the comms.

"Yeah. You need his help?" She asked, already guessing why Sylvester would be asking that question. Her heart fluttered a little, not really wanting Ralph to get involved until they knew what state Walter was in.

"He's a lot faster at this than I am." Sylvester admitted as he continued to code to save as much time as possible.

"Ok, but just don't tell him who we're trying to find." She acquiesced hesitantly. And Sylvester didn't question her reasons. It wasn't right to drag a child into this mess. Especially not Ralph. If the miniature genius knew it was Walter in danger, he'd try all the risks he could think of and that was just asking for trouble with Ralph. He could understand why Paige was reluctant to bring her son into this one.

It was too close to home for all of them.

"Of course." Sylvester agreed, then hit the call button on his phone. "Calling him now, I'll patch him through on the comms." He added for Paige's benefit.

"I hope we find Walter soon." Paige said quietly. The world slowed a little. All of team Scorpion, both current and former felt the feeling resonate between them. They all wished for the same thing; finding those who were missing from their lives.

"Sly?" Ralph's voice woke them all from the reverie they'd temporarily fallen in to.

"Ralph. I uh… I need your help. Gotta find the origin of a text and the software isn't going fast enough. We're on short time with this one, can you help me out?" Sylvester said, recovering quickly and being careful not to give anything else away.

"Sure. I'm logging in now." The kid replied and Sylvester could hear the tapping of keys over the phone. "You know, Walter would be faster. It _is_ his design." Ralph added, unaware of the ache that comment set inside their hearts. It wasn't Ralph's fault, he didn't know Walter was missing and it was staying that way until the last possible second.

"I know. But he's not available right now and you know his coding better than I do. So, can you help me out?" Sylvester asked, his voice tight and uncomfortable in his own throat.

There was a sigh from the phone and Sylvester could just imagine the young lad pursing his lips in frustration. "I don't know the details of what happened. Mom won't tell me anything. But it seems silly to carry on like this. You all still clearly care for Walter and I'm sure he does for you too. Can't you guys just say sorry and make up already?" He'd made it sound so simple and so innocent. Sylvester had to hold his breath for fear of letting his emotions tell Ralph that something was wrong. It took him a moment to gather his nerve and voice.

"You're right Ralph." Paige replied before Sylvester could come up with a response. "Adults tend to over-complicate things. It's sometimes difficult for us to see through the emotions we feel." She continued. "I will sort the whole thing out with Walter after this case." The '_if he's still alive by that point_' was left unsaid but the rest of the team heard it none-the-less. "I promise." Paige added, her voice was strong over the comms but what none of them could see – _except Toby who glanced at her while rushing Cabe's bed through hallway after hallway_ – were the tears streaming down her cheeks, and the barely-held-together composure slipping to worry and concern.

Ralph took a few seconds to respond. "Ok. 'cause I really miss him." He said, unaware of the heartstrings he was pulling on.

"I know sweetie. Me too." Paige admitted. It scared her how much the thought of losing Walter for definite plagued her. The anger she'd felt toward him just seemed so inconsequential now. And the idea of never being able to right their wrongs was just too tragic.

Several precious seconds ticked by before Ralph spoke again; "I'm in, updating the software now." Ralph confirmed and Sylvester had to mute the microphone as he sighed loudly, trying to collect himself before interacting with the boy genius again. That whole conversation between mother and son had had him on emotional tender hooks the whole time.

Florence put her hand on his shoulder in a brave attempt at comfort and Sylvester glanced up at her in surprise. "You're doing a great job Sly. I know this isn't easy, but I want you to know that I'm proud of you." She admitted and took his hand in hers. He glanced down at their intertwined fingers then back to her eyes. They were red and watery still but under control. She gave him a reassuring smile and he smiled back with genuine appreciation.

"Thank you." He said to her, "I needed to hear that." He admitted quietly.

"I know." Florence said, and stepped a little closer to him. Perhaps now wasn't the perfect time to be admitting what she was about to say out loud, but if the past few hours had taught her anything, it was that the future was never guaranteed. In light of that perspective, _now_ seemed like the perfect time to say what she needed to say.

"There's something else you need to hear too."


	12. Ch11: The Tangled Webs we Weave

**Mind Games**

**Summary:** What do you get when you cross a depressed emotionally ill-equipped genius with a logical acidic solution?

**Disclaimer:** This is a fan-fiction story of the TV Series: Scorpion, and is in no way affiliated with the actual story/series in any of the aforementioned media. All characters and other materials related to the show that are used are not intended to infringe on any Copyrights. Elemental-Zer0 takes sole responsibility for any mistakes or offence that may be taken but truly not meant. However, any characters that are not related to any copyrights are copyrighted to Elemental-Zer0, as are any adaptions/variations to the plot set out in the original author's story/plot.

**Authors Note: **Chapter Eleven! Not long to go 'til the end now… but a sequel is being drafted so the journey is not yet over.

Let me know what you think, but no flames please. If you have any criticism to make please do it _politely_ otherwise I shall ignore your words. (It's happened before, I'm sorry to say, and I hadn't even posted any real chapters…)

* * *

_**Chapter Eleven: The Tangled Webs we Weave**_

The scene replayed over and over. It was unending.

"_You lied!_"

"_You made her fall in love with you!_"

"_You didn't tell me, I found out!_"

"_What were you thinking?_"

The comments circled him like vultures, picking and snapping at his vulnerabilities like the starved scavengers that they were. Somewhere deep down inside, Walter was aware that it wasn't real, but the pain of that day was too much to fight against. He knew logically that he should fight back, should try to find his way out of whatever illusion he'd been placed under. But honestly what was the point?

It wouldn't bring his friends back to him.

It wouldn't bring Paige and Ralph back to him…

How had he let his life become so entangled with the others' to the point where he couldn't function without them? It was irrational. Illogical. Inefficient.

But his goals had shifted since he'd met them. The achievements they'd accomplished had meant more because he'd shared them with his friends, because failure had become too expensive, both emotionally and physically for all of them.

None of it meant anything if he couldn't share it with them…

With her…

"_And if I'm being honest…" _

"No..." He whimpered to himself as her comment rolled over him for the hundredth time. He curled up tighter into the ball he'd pulled himself into after the first hour of the endless accusations that his friends disembodied voices hurled at him.

He didn't want to hear it again.

"_I don't even know if…"_

"Stop…" He practically begged. To whom he was speaking to, he wasn't sure. For all he knew Collins had just been an apparition conjured from his guilty conscience about the whole mess. And it was someone else pulling the strings. Hell, for all he knew he'd had a psychotic break and was just whimpering on the floor of his bedroom.

But no matter how hard he wished it, it didn't stop:

"… _if you completely satisfy me." _

"Please…"

* * *

Collins read the readouts twice. This couldn't be right.

Walter was deteriorating at a faster rate than he'd planned for.

"How disappointing Walter." He commented to unconscious body beside him. "You see what those monkeys have done to you?" he asked. Walter obviously didn't respond. "Humanity is a flaw. It holds you back from your full intellectual potential. But would you listen to me?" Collins ranted as he turned back to the screen before him. "Guess I'm pulling you out sooner than I expected." He muttered to himself as he set the commands for the machine to bring Walter back from his medically induced coma.

The IV line slowed to a trickle, and the canula switched from hallucinogenic gas to pure oxygen to speed up the waking process. It would take a few hours for the concoction to clear Walter's system enough for him to come around. Collins decided to use the time wisely; he knew that team Scorpion - _or whatever they were called now_ \- were not too far off from finding his location. If he wanted to get answers, he'd need to slow them down as much a she could. And with the collateral that he currently had at his disposal, that would be easy. All he had to do was dangle a few innocent lives in front of them under a death-defying puzzle and their progress toward locating Walter would stop for a few precious moments.

The woman would be the first trap he'd set. Another maze-like contraption should keep them all busy. This time though it wouldn't be floss that triggered the trap. He smiled as he picked up a small laser pen from his desk. Lasers were more difficult to out manoeuvre.

One wrong step with a laser and it's not only the target in trouble, but also the one who miss-stepped to begin with.

How would the team fair when the rescuers became the victims too?

* * *

"Guys where are you?" Happy called out over the comms. It had been too long already, and she was growing worried about the plan failing.

"Open the doors Happy, we're coming down the hall now." Toby panted and she hit the switch to manually open the elevator door. She spotted them almost immediately and manoeuvred herself out of the way as they came to an almost crashing halt inside the now cramped elevator.

She closed the doors and locked anyone else out while they travelled to the ground floor car park. She then joined the frenzy of action as they moved Cabe off the bed and swapped him for the cadaver in the wheel chair. It wasn't the best plan, she knew; it would only slow their invisible pursuers down a little. Eventually they'd be tracked back to Centipede's new office. If Walter were around, he'd be screaming at them to find somewhere else to hide out, but Centipedes funds were still skimpy at best and the idea of hiding in an uncertain location with a man recovering from death was not an option.

The only other solution was to contact Homeland Security and ask for back up. That was Paige's next job once they were in the car heading back to Sylvester and Florence. She had a better rapport with them and was able to clearly get her point across.

Happy didn't envy the ex-waitress's position.

"Ok, we're good to go." Toby declared and Happy watched as he turned to the doctor who had helped them. "Are you sure you won't reconsider?" Toby asked and Happy was reminded of what the doctor had asked them to do once they had Cabe ready to leave.

"If I am seen to be helping you, I fear what that man will do to my little girl." He said as he shook his head. "If it looks like you've over powered me, it won't be my fault." He explained unnecessarily, "That is my hope anyway." He added uncertainly.

"What's her name?" Paige suddenly asked. "So, we can find her and let her know you sent us." She added softly. Tears stung the doctor's eyes for a moment.

"Amberle." He choked out, "Her name is Amberle." He repeated, holding back the tears as best he could.

"That's a beautiful name." Paige said, "We'll find her," She promised him, with tears threatening her own eyes. "We'll find Amberle." She said again as if to cement the fact into reality. He nodded gratefully to her, then after taking a moment to collect himself he turned to Toby expectantly.

Toby did not miss a beat.


	13. Ch12: The Faults in our Hearts

**Mind Games**

**Summary:** What do you get when you cross a depressed emotionally ill-equipped genius with a logical acidic solution?

**Disclaimer:** This is a fan-fiction story of the TV Series: Scorpion, and is in no way affiliated with the actual story/series in any of the aforementioned media. All characters and other materials related to the show that are used are not intended to infringe on any Copyrights. Elemental-Zer0 takes sole responsibility for any mistakes or offence that may be taken but truly not meant. However, any characters that are not related to any copyrights are copyrighted to Elemental-Zer0, as are any adaptions/variations to the plot set out in the original author's story/plot.

**Authors Note: **Chapter twelve! Are you still enjoying it?

Let me know what you think, but no flames please. If you have any criticism to make please do it _politely_ otherwise I shall ignore your words. (It's happened before, I'm sorry to say, and I hadn't even posted any real chapters…)

* * *

_**Chapter Twelve: The Faults in our Hearts**_

It wasn't long before Happy, Paige, and Toby had Cabe settled in the new Centipede Partnership Headquarters, on a stolen gurney that Happy had somehow managed to procure before she'd set up the wheelchair corpse switch from the morgue, and hooked up to several machines and medications to help his recovery. However, the group knew they were wide open to attack if they were to be found by any more of Collins' 'hired' help.

So, Paige took the case to the only people they could turn to for help.

"I need to speak with the Homeland Director immediately, it's a matter of life and death." Toby eyed Paige's back warily as he triple checked Cabe's stability. It was not a conversation he was envious of to put it mildly.

Happy sidled up to Toby while Paige continued her call. The pale pallor that their friend had taken on was concerning and jarring to see. It wasn't like Cabe to be so still and inactive. He may have been the eldest on the team, but he was the most physical when it came to protecting them all. He was their shield. Their warrior. The man with the badge and commanded action in the wake of their radical plans.

And now, he was laid out on an inappropriately appropriated gurney, and at the mercy of those he'd sworn to protect and their ability to keep him from any further harm.

"He's gonna be ok, right doc?" She asked, her chest felt tight at the question. She felt Toby pause in his ministrations to look at her. "He has to be ok, coz who else is gonna help us when we find Walter?" She asked, still avoiding her husband's gaze. She was worried. And scared. But unable to show it.

"It's ok." Toby soothed from his position by Cabe's bed. "Cabe'll be fine. And we'll find Walter too." He said, noticing from the corner of his eye when she took hold of the bed railing and clenched it tightly, clearly fighting the tears that were almost winning. "Paige is on to Homeland now; they'll send back up with us and then…" he paused for a moment while he took a reading from the ECG monitor. "Then, we can all apologise and get the old gang back together." He finished, unsure if that was what everyone else wanted, but he knew that was what he wanted. He missed being part of Scorpion. Walter, while infuriating at times, was a decent leader and his ability to make snap decisions was unrivalled.

He understood that they'd all been hurting at the time of Centipede's partnership being drawn up, but hindsight was always clearer than an emotional foresight. And he was maybe a little overly hopeful that Walter would understand but family always had arguments and transgressions. The key thing he felt he would be having to argue for heavily was that family always forgave too.

I mean, this was Walter. He wasn't exactly the best at interpreting familial values.

Or forgiving.

Except when it came to Paige.

And Ralph.

"Is that what you really want?" Happy asked, breaking Toby's thoughts apart. "To go back to being part of Scorpion?" She asked. He hesitated, unsure of her own feelings on the matter but chose to be honest because the alternative would just cause more trouble.

"Yes. But I'm aware it would never be what it was before all this." He said carefully. "I like Centipede, but Scorpion worked. Scorpion meant something a little more. Scorpion was the turning point for all of us." He added, and it was true. Scorpion had given him a new look on life, introduced him to the concept of achievements rather than failures, overlooked his bad habits to help him overcome them, and introduced him to his wife. How could he not owe the Scorpion franchise any sentiment?

"Yeah, I know. I miss it too." Happy said and Toby was surprised.

"Really?" He asked sceptical. She gave him a light thwack before snorting out a soft laugh.

"Yes dummy." She said as though it were obvious. He played on the abuse to her entertainment. It was soft humour, light hearted, and exactly what she needed to feel better.

"Fine, you can tell her that her special agent is currently unconscious in our headquarters with a target on his back and that government asset Walter O'Brien is missing, presumably kidnapped by escaped psychopath Mark Collins!" Paige's voice broke into their moment and both turned to face the pacing ex-waitress as she fumed at the poor sod on the other end of the connection.

"I hope we find Walter soon." Happy commented as they both studied Paige's nervous ticks coming out in full force. The worry frown, the elevated breathing, heightened sensitivity to anything annoying, and the authoritative speech patterns were all in full panic swing today.

"I hope to god that when we do, he's not hurt in any way." Toby replied, not that watching Paige tear Collins a new one wouldn't be entertaining, but if Walter was anything but fine when they found him, he feared the effect it would have on, not only Paige, but Ralph too. She'd never forgive herself.

"I do _not _want to deal with that." Happy returned, knowing full well what Toby was referring to. Toby sidled round to her side and gave her a kiss on the side of her head.

"Yeah, me neither." He agreed.

* * *

"Sly, I've finished boosting the system, it should find the sender in the next half hour." Ralph's voice said over the intercom, awakening Sylvester from his trance of watching Paige pace in her heated conversation with whoever had picked up the phone in the Homeland Security office.

"Uh, ok thanks buddy. Great work!" He replied and moved to hang up but Ralph had one more question to ask.

"When were you gonna tell me that Walter was missing?" He asked bluntly. And Sylvester felt his heart freeze. He stammered for a response.

"Uhm, what… what makes you think he's uh… missing?" he asked, panicked eyes locking with Florence's who looked just as panicked and lost as he did.

"I can hear mom yelling in the background." He replied with a deadpan tone. And Sylvester couldn't find a response before he spoke again. "Mom told you not to tell me didn't she." It wasn't a question. And Sylvester just couldn't keep lying any more.

"Yeah, I'm sorry buddy." He admitted just as Paige hung up her phone and turned to them.

"Homeland's sending back up to us here. As soon as we trace the messages we can mount a full tactical rescue." She said, unaware that Ralph was still listening in on the intercoms.

"And then you'll bring Walter back safe." Ralph's voice asked innocently and at the sound of it, Paige's face paled drastically. "Right, mom?" He asked, and even though it was almost imperceptible, they could all hear the light tremor of fear in his voice.

Tears sprang forth from Paige's eyes as she realised that the cat was out of the bag and she'd have to explain to Ralph what was going on. "Ralphy baby…" She began but found she couldn't find the words to say. "I'm sorry." She finally settled on.

"Dad wants to speak with you." Ralph replied and the sound of the phone passing hands echoed in the office before Drew's voice greeted the room.

"Paige, is it true?" he asked, "Walter's missing?" Paige took the phone from the cradle then, effectively turning the conference call to a private one. She took the phone to another corner of the room and filled Drew, and effectively Ralph, in on the situation.

Florence sat herself in a chair beside Sylvester as the tension got to her. "I don't know how you do this daily." She admitted. Sylvester gave her an appraising look before tuning his gaze back to the screen before him. The software was already forty percent completed. Go Ralphy!

"I'm not sure either if I'm honest." He admitted quietly. In a brave and bold show of support, Florence slipped her hand over his and gave it a squeeze. He froze at the contact and met her gaze.

"I meant what I said Sly. I have very strong romantic feelings toward you." She repeated. "I'm not being sympathetic to your broken heart. I'm being sincere. I don't know how to make it any clearer to you." She said, her mannerism so alike Walter but in a refreshingly open way instead. And Sylvester found that he couldn't focus on both problems at the same time.

"I believe you Florence. I truly do. But I can't focus on this, on… us… while my friend is missing like this." He replied, taking her hands in his to show that he wasn't rejecting her feelings outright. "I would be honoured to revisit this topic of conversation after this is over. If you are able to wait for that?" He added, with a hopeful glean to his eyes. Seeing the hope and understanding that now was not a good time, Florence gave him a smile and nodded.

"Of course." She agreed.

It was then that Paige finished her call with Drew and re-joined the conversation.

"I'm so sorry Paige, I didn't know the mute was off." Sylvester apologised but Paige just waved him off.

"Its Ralph, he'd have found out one way or another anyway." She replied as she placed the phone back in its cradle. "Drew's bringing him back here now, he reckons Ralph may be able to help more if he's here and honestly, I agree with him." She admitted and closed her eyes for a moment. She was blaming herself for the whole thing and it showed in her behaviour, so much so that even the emotionally stunted geniuses could see it.

"Paige," Sylvester began, "This isn't your fault." He said but her eyes shot open and a fiery anger flashed out of them.

"Isn't it?!" She blurted out, control temporarily lost in the heat of the emotions she was feeling. "I told him to lie to me, after lying to him about something just as important and emotionally triggering, and then just left him and set up a rival company to make him feel the pain I was unjustly feeling!" She blurted out, tears forming in the corners of her eyes again. "If I had just been more patient, more understanding of his thought patterns… If I hadn't walked out on him like I did… Walter… Walter would still be.." She tried but found it difficult to voice her opinion of how things might have gone differently. It was then that Toby chimed in his opinion;

"Walter would still be in some form of trouble, Paige." He said, with a frightening amount of macabre confidence. "Collins wanted Walter, and he's a stubborn guy. One way or another, he'd have gotten Walter, whether we were there or not." Toby reasoned as he and Happy moved as one into the main office after having made sure Cabe was as comfortable as a kidnapped patient could be given the circumstances.

"But… but I…" Paige stammered as the emotional breakdown that was halted back in the garage finally made itself known again. "I hurt him… so badly…" she finally found herself saying, and the tears that had been fighting to fall finally won the battle. Toby moved to support her just as Sylvester stood and brought a chair across for her to sit on. Happy plucked a box of tissues from one of the desks and held them out but Paige was too upset to notice.

"We're all to blame Paige." Toby said. "Each and everyone of us played a part in that argument. Walter included." He added, hoping to calm the waterworks a little by spreading the blame. It was true though. The only ones who could truly say for a fact that they had not been involved in the argument were either laying unconscious in the next room recovering from a couple of bullet wounds in the back, or being driven back to the office by their father.

"I wasn't brave enough to admit my feelings to Florence." Sylvester admitted, "Walter was right; I should have said or done something sooner, but I was hurting from a rejection that I'd assumed was there and I blamed Walter for stealing Florence away from me even though I know Walter too well to know he'd never intentionally do that to me. I let my emotions cloud my actions that evening Paige, and knowing what I do now, I will forever regret those actions I took." He explained, "I hurt him too." He said, and took a tissue from the box Happy had brought over and handed it to the ex-waitress. She took it gratefully.

"I walked out with you with no real reason." Toby added. "I was quick to judge, and a behavioural therapist should never have lost his patience with someone like Walter. I know all of his short-comings, I know his struggles, I know the difficulty he faces with understanding the reactions of others when it seems so logical to him. I've studied his behaviour since I first became friends with him. I, of all of us, should have known that leaving him the way we did was not going to help him in any way to progress or learn. It would just hurt him and at the time that's what I wanted, what I expect we all wanted." And Toby truly felt the weight of his inactivity that day. But the true weight of the consequences were only now just measuring up to him and he found himself severely wanting in that department.

The shame and guilt were suffocatingly dense.

"We all played a part in this Paige. Lets just focus on getting him home, where he belongs." Happy added, "We can play the blame game then." She said, and while it was a softer version of her usual '_Quit-the-pity-party-we-have-a-job-to-do_' speech, it was exactly what they all needed to hear.

And there was something else they all sorely needed to hear too…

"You've finally come to your senses then…" A very familiar and sorely missed voice rasped from behind the group. "Good, coz I don't have enough feet to break off in your asses." As one, they all turned to the gurney in the room across from them.

And there sat a very weak looking –_ but very much awake_ – Agent Cabe Gallo.


	14. Ch13: Finders Keepers…

**Mind Games**

**Summary:** What do you get when you cross a depressed emotionally ill-equipped genius with a logical acidic solution?

**Disclaimer:** This is a fan-fiction story of the TV Series: Scorpion, and is in no way affiliated with the actual story/series in any of the aforementioned media. All characters and other materials related to the show that are used are not intended to infringe on any Copyrights. Elemental-Zer0 takes sole responsibility for any mistakes or offence that may be taken but truly not meant. However, any characters that are not related to any copyrights are copyrighted to Elemental-Zer0, as are any adaptions/variations to the plot set out in the original author's story/plot.

**Authors Note: **Chapter thirteen… The ideas are just flowing for this story. I know that Walter is a little OOC… I'm sorry. I had lost his personality for a moment, but I feel I have a plan to bring him back in the next chapter or so… my reasons are that in a forced dreamscape with nowhere to run to, you can't avoid your emotions. And if an emotionally stunted man can't escape that which he hides from when conscious, how would he react? This was my take on how Walter might have reacted, but I'm just one person and am fallible. Please entertain me with your thoughts of how Walter might act when he can't run from his emotions.

Let me know what you think, but no flames please. If you have any criticism to make please do it _politely_ otherwise I shall ignore your words. (It's happened before, I'm sorry to say, and I hadn't even posted any real chapters…)

* * *

_**Chapter Thirteen: Finders Keepers…**_

"_You've finally come to your senses then…" A very familiar and sorely missed voice rasped from behind the group. "Good, coz I don't have enough feet to break off in your asses." As one, they all turned to the gurney in the room across from them. _

_And there sat a very weak looking –__ but very much awake__ – Agent Cabe Gallo. _

Toby was moving before he registered himself doing it. His only thought was to be by his patient's side. Cabe should not be sat up like he was, and he should not be attempting to move or make any form of conversation no matter how sorely needed that information was. However, while keeping Cabe on the bed was going to prove difficult, keeping him quiet enough to rest was going to be nigh on impossible. Especially considering the fact that Cabe had yet to understand the full extent of the situation they were all in.

"Cabe, you need to lie back down man, those stitches weren't designed for what you're doing to them right now." Toby admonished and started guiding the agent back down on the bed. Cabe tried to wave him off but Toby was merciless. "Look, you need to lay down. I'll put the bed up for you so you can rest upright, but you have to lay back for me." He negotiated and eventually had Cabe where he wanted him, much to the older man's annoyance.

"How do you feel Cabe?" Paige asked hesitantly as the group formed a circle around the stolen bed. Cabe took a moment to catch his breath before answering.

"Like I've been blown across the room, and shot." He said a little bitterly. "Twice" he added as an afterthought.

"Well that's coz you were." Happy chimed in, calling out his sarcastic undertone with her own.

"I know." He replied, and winced a little when he shifted his position a little. Then asked, "What kind of hospital is this place anyways?" It was jarring to realise that Cabe had never stepped foot in the Centipede office before now. And even now, he'd had to be wheeled in rather than having stepped foot inside the office area. So much had happened in just one day. It was only that morning that the concept of Centipede and Scorpion being separate entities was so clear, and yet now, the lines between the two companies were blurred and disjointed.

"We had to get you out of the hospital. Someone targeted you in there and Homeland are taking their sweet time in verifying the risk threat. We couldn't leave you there." Toby explained as he fiddled with the morphine auto dosage counter on the IV line. "But don't worry, you've got the best doctor in the world looking after you right here." He added with a cocky grin as he continued adjusting the machines around the bed.

"Lucky me." Cabe drawled, then the memory of the explosion took him and his thoughts quickly turned to Walter. He'd been upstairs when it had gone off. Was he ok? He looked around for another bed like his with Walter laid on it but his was the only bed in the room. "Where's Walter?" He finally asked. His frown deepened when he couldn't see any clue as to what had happened to the man.

What he _could _see was five sullen faces that were actively avoiding his gaze.

Cabe's heart clenched in dread.

"What happened?" He asked, his voice stern and demanding. He needed to know his boy was safe.

"Cabe, Walter… he wasn't…" Toby started haltingly.

"He wasn't at the garage when we got there." Paige finished for him and Toby cast her a thankful glance. "We think Collins has him." She continued and moved to a desk drawer to remove the glasses Happy had found on the ramp after their first inspection of the bomb-site. "We found these when we found you bleeding out on the floor. You were the only one there when we arrived." She handed Cabe the glasses. Her report was succinct and to the point. Her emotions having been put firmly under control in the wake of having to bring someone up to speed.

"We found out a few things while you were sleeping the day away." Toby added and began to explain what they'd discovered from Florence and from the doctor in the hospital during their rescue of the older man. When they'd finished, the sun had long since set and Cabe could honestly say he'd never seen any of it coming. At least not in the way it had gone down, that is.

"That crazy ass son of a crackpot has our boy?" Was the comment he found himself saying after all had been explained. Cabe was normally a gentle soul with giving people the benefit of the doubt, if he wasn't, he'd have lost his patience with the whole group stood before him countless times. But Collins was a different league entirely. Cabe's personal experience with the fallout of Collins' escape that had put the name of Gallo in question and put Cabe's dignity through the ringer in the form of a trial over his own innocence in the matter had greatly discoloured any redeeming features that Collins might have had, if at all.

If Cabe had found Collins to be unforgivable _then –_ when it was only Cabe who'd been targeted – then he was sure as hell going to burn for putting Walter in his crosshairs. There wasn't a corner small or dark enough for Collins to hide in. Cabe would find him. And hell hath no fury like a pseudo-father out for vengeance. Bullet wounds be damned.

Scorned women had nothing on Cabe's hatred for the man right at that moment.

"I'm gonna kill that son of a bitch."

* * *

It wasn't long after they'd caught Cabe up to date when the Director of Homeland Security turned up on their doorstep with two extra agents to ascertain the validity and the risk of the situation. When she saw Cabe laid on a bed however, she moved faster than any of the teams had seen.

"Why did you wait until now to report all this?" She asked, after having also been caught up to speed with the current goings on.

"I tried. Your receptionist doesn't have Centipede on your shortlist of direct contacts, and all of the Scorpion team members who could make the call were unavailable until now." Paige replied frostily. The Director gave her a dismissive glance before addressing the two agents she'd brought with her.

"Get him to a secure hospital and tell the boys to gear up. We have a rescue operation to plan." She ordered and made to leave the office but Team Scorpion/Centipede were not about to let her walk out of there without a fight.

"And how do you propose to find him?" Toby asked as he stepped forward from the side of Cabe's bed. Happy followed him and stood beside him with her arms crossed before her.

"Isn't this just the type of thing you employ Scorpion to help with?" Paige asked as she and Sylvester joined Toby and Happy. None of the team realised they'd slipped back into old habits nor had they noticed the slip of tongue when Paige had said Scorpion and not Centipede.

"Yes, it is." The Director confirmed as she assessed the group stood before. "But it is my understanding that Scorpion, is unavailable right now. And according to my sources, the Centipede Partnership has no grounds to speak on behalf of Scorpion's terms." She replied with a firm look at them all. The comment had stung. And they all felt it. She gave them a dismissive nod before turning to follow the agents and Cabe out of the door but before she could get very far, another voice stopped her in her tracks.

"I speak for Scorpion." All sets of eyes turned back to see Florence standing by Sylvester's desk with a determined look on her face. She faltered a little under the intense scrutiny but continued nonetheless. "As the last remaining member currently available from Scorpion, I hereby officially employ the help of the Centipede Partnership to act as equals in this case." She stated clearly and confidently. Because, really, it was the least she could do. The grateful looks she received from her former team members were worth the effort, and if they could find Walter, and her sister, maybe they could start to repair their broken friendships.

"And don't forget about me!" Cabe's voice called from the door way.

"You're Homeland Security before you're Scorpion." The Director shot back over her shoulder just as the older man was wheeled out of the doors.

"You only need one representative to make that decision though," Toby countered, "And Flo has already spoken for us." He added with grin.

"Be that as it may, Homeland has yet to choose to employ Scorpion on this case. And I personally think you're all too involved to warrant allowing it this time." The Director countered. She moved again, but was stopped by a young boy standing right in her path. Ralph looked up at her with a determined look.

"But you don't have the software to locate Walter in time." He said and Sylvester picked up on the train of thought the young genius was going with.

"We _could _loan it to you, but for a very expensive, almost impossible to afford fee." He added to Ralph's comment.

"With minimal to no help in how to use it." Happy added.

"And if Walter is found too late because of your inability to see that we're the best chance he has of escaping this whole thing in one piece…" Toby finished, leaving the consequences dangling for effect.

The Director was quiet for a moment as she readjusted her thoughts. She turned back to the group who'd effectively strong armed their way onto the case. "Fine. But I want you all to agree to do one thing for me before I officially hand this case over to you." She said with stern eye. She made sure she had their undivided attention before continuing. "You fix whatever issues you have with Mr O'Brien and you find a way to work with him in all future cases." She said with a grin.

The group before her gave a variance of surprised and relieved looks before turning questioning. "Scorpion's not been as successful now that it's only three members strong. I'd rather not have to explain to my superiors about the drop in successful case closures." She said in answer to the unasked questions. "Find a way to join efforts or face prosecution from me personally." She added before giving them all a confirming nod and leaving through the door, following the agents that had taken Cabe to their vehicle outside. Much to the old agent's protests.

"She can't do that can she?" Sylvester asked, not that he minded the stipulation, but his curiosity had him wondering.

"I've no idea what that lady can or can't do, but do you really want to call her bluff?" Toby asked as he moved toward Florence. "Miss Tipton I could kiss you! Thank you for sticking up for us." He said as he took her into a firm hug. She looked a little surprised and gave an attempt at reciprocating the intimate gesture, but it was as awkward as watching Walter try to be emotionally supportive. Paige smiled ruefully at the comparison, they were certainly alike in that area. It was one of the reason's she'd felt so jealous of Florence; she and Walter had the same behavioural mannerisms. She'd been so sure that because of that, and Florence's greater intellect than her own, Walter would grow bored of Paige and follow the more 'logical' route.

"Mom, are we part of Scorpion again?" Ralph's voice brought her out of her reverie, and she cast her glance down to her boy. She gave him a smile.

"That's down to Walter now." She said as she pulled him in for a hug. "That was brave of you to stand up for us. Thank you." She added, complimenting his bravery of stopping the Director from leaving and giving the team something to bargain with to get the case.

"Only too happy to be of assistance." Florence replied to Toby's previous question from back where Toby and Sylvester were still complimenting her quick thinking, however before they could argue the point, an adrenaline inducting "_ping_" echoed throughout the whole office. The silence that followed was deafening.

"Is that…" Happy started and before she could finish, Sylvester and Ralph were at the desk and checking the results of the search programme. Precious seconds ticked by as Sylvester tapped away. Then he glanced up at them all, his face split into a huge grin.

"We have a location!" He cried out, and the goose-bumps and adrenaline that assaulted the whole group were the likes of those only heard of in legendary tales.

'_Finally_,' Paige thought to herself amid the cheers of celebratory hugs, '_You'll be home soon, Walter. Just hold on a little longer, we're coming._'


	15. Ch14: Single Point of Failure

**-Mind Games**

**Summary:** What do you get when you cross a depressed emotionally ill-equipped genius with a logical acidic solution?

**Disclaimer:** This is a fan-fiction story of the TV Series: Scorpion, and is in no way affiliated with the actual story/series in any of the aforementioned media. All characters and other materials related to the show that are used are not intended to infringe on any Copyrights. Elemental-Zer0 takes sole responsibility for any mistakes or offence that may be taken but truly not meant. However, any characters that are not related to any copyrights are copyrighted to Elemental-Zer0, as are any adaptions/variations to the plot set out in the original author's story/plot.

**Authors Note: **Chapter Fourteen… So, this is hopefully my redemption of Walter's odd characterisations to date. Hoping I've got him right. Let me know your thoughts.

No flames please. If you have any criticism to make please do it _politely_ otherwise, I shall ignore your words. (It's happened before, I'm sorry to say, and I hadn't even posted any real chapters…)

* * *

_**Chapter Fourteen: Single Point of Failure**_

It was with a great resistance that Walter felt himself awaken. His body felt lead-lined and his eyes refused to open easily. His focus was blurred and fleeting but he was soon able to make out smaller details.

"Apologies for the rough awakening, old friend." A voice said to him. Walter couldn't quite work out where it had come from. It had sounded tinny and static, as though being relayed through a cheap speaker. "It's the uncomfortable side effect of a deep sleep-inducing anaesthesia. You'd know it as Sodium Thiopental." The voice continued and Walter's groggy brain struggled to identify the drugs name for a moment. But it eventually came back to him, albeit slower than he was used to.

Sodium Thiopental was a barbiturate that was popular a few years ago to medically induce comas in patients requiring long-term and highly stressful treatments. It was replaced with Propofol a few years back because of the less intrusive side effects and recovery time period. However, there was another thing that Sodium Thiopental was also commonly used for:

A truth serum.

A lighter dose works to weaken the resolve of the subject and make them more compliant to pressure. The barbiturates as a class decrease higher cortical brain functioning, resulting in a general loss of inhibition. It was theorised that because lying is more complex than telling the truth, suppression of the higher cortical functions may lead to the uncovering of the truth. The drug tends to make subjects loquacious and cooperative with interrogators.*

Walter felt his chest tighten a little. Someone had drugged him to get something from him… that much was starting to make sense. But who? Why? What for?

"I'm sorry for the mild pain you may feel in your head. But I had no other choice. The answers are in there somewhere and I need them." The voice was back, and it was starting to sound familiar. But before he could dwell on that, a strange sensation made itself known on his skull, it was mild but there was an ache that was more physical than mental. He attempted to move his hand to investigate but found his hands strapped down tightly to the bed he was laying on. He shifted about, testing his body's movement but found that not only were his hands restrained, but so was everything else too.

A trickle of panic was starting to creep into his consciousness as the situation slowly became clearer to him. He was unwillingly restrained, at the mercy of someone willing to use a truth serum on him, and no back up to speak of.

Just what kind of trouble had he found himself in now?

"It was this or I kidnap your girlfriend to get you to talk." The voice continued in a distracted kind of tone. "But then your pesky team would no doubt show up and dramatize some form of rescue." It was a male's voice, still achingly familiar but the 'who' was still out of Walter's grasp. "So, I had to think outside the box. I had to isolate you and get you on your own. Imagine my surprise when the whole team just up and left you with only a few nudges in the right direction?" His captor was rambling away through the speaker and Walter was beginning to understand just what had happened. '_A few nudges…_' had this man instigated team Scorpion's demise through hints and nudges? Was it even possible for a group of high calibre geniuses to be misdirected like that?

"Of course, when that whole thing blew up – _you're welcome for that by the way_ – I had the perfect opportunity to get you out of that hell pit. I had to rescue you Walter, you were wasting your talents away with that god forsaken team of pseudo heroes and sidekicks." Something in Walter's subconscious mind seemed to make the connection. He knew this person. He knew his captor. "And we both know how the kidnapping a friend thing worked out last time… safe to say that plan was a failure, so couldn't try that again." And slowly, the puzzle pieces lined up.

"Collins?" Walter asked, mostly confident it was the older genius, but he had to be sure. His heart hammered in his chest at the thought that his crazy failure of a friend was the one whose mercy he was currently helpless to. "What are you doing? Where…" He tried to ask but Collins' voice shushed him, and he found himself uncharacteristically obedient to the command. It took him a moment to figure out why.

The truth serum. It made him highly suggestible to commands and actions that were normally unlike his normal behaviour. Even as he tried to fight the abnormal behaviour he was exhibiting, he found himself slipping into the easy trance of just following orders. His higher functions within his brain were weak due to the drug, it made sense. Even if a part of him hated it.

"Walter, I need you to tell me where your BBI research is." Collins' voice asked. In his state of suggestibility, Walter tried but failed to hold the truth from the escaped maniac.

"I destroyed it. I didn't see the point in continuing the research and after you kidnapped Toby for it, I decided it needed to be destroyed." He admitted even as he struggled to stop himself from talking. He just couldn't fight it, something was fundamentally preventing him from hiding anything.

"That's a real shame Walter." Collins said through the speaker, and from the corner of his view, Walter's blurred vision made out the fuzzy image of the older Genius moving into his view. Walter's eyes were still unfocused, but he could certainly make out the wild look in his ex-friend's eyes. "This means I'm going to have to keep you here a bit longer than I'd planned." Collins gave him a grin that clearly told the world that he didn't think it was a shame at all. "You're going to tell me everything you remember about your research and you're going to help me rebuild it for a slightly different purpose than the one you were working toward." He said and Walter felt his heart rate increase a little. He fumbled with the restraints again in vain. "How does that sound?" Collins asked. And this time Walter was grateful for the ability to only tell the truth:

"Utterly terrifying."

* * *

"That was fast Ms. Dineen. I'll have a team out to you in a few minutes. Keep me posted on this." The Homeland Director replied through the speaker phone and then the dial tone signalled the end of the call.

"Well she sounded excited." Toby quipped but Happy elbowed him in the chest. His indignant squawk of surprise did nothing to alleviate the building tension as the gang's thoughts turned to Walter and his predicament right now.

"Sly, can you bring up the blueprints for the building Collins is in?" Paige asked, ignoring Toby and Happy's little interaction completely. Sylvester snapped out of his thoughts and nodded an affirmative. He quickly brought up the schematics that Paige had asked for and presented it on the big screen for everyone to see.

"The building used to be an old mill house back in the sixties. When the company went bust, a car parts specialist took it over to use as a storage unit and a small parts repair workshop before they upgraded to a bigger warehouse a few miles south of here." Sylvester recited as they took in the floor plans. "As of the most recent surveyors audit, there are four main open spaces on the ground floor, each one just as equally as big as the next, though that wasn't always the case. The walls were dry wall walls, built by the second owner to separate a few working spaces. Before that it was one big floor space. It wouldn't take much work to remove the temporary walls." Sylvester said with an uncertain tone to his voice.

"What are you trying to say Sly? That Collins was into some redecorating?" Happy asked with a no nonsense quip to her voice but Sylvester was immune to it at this point.

"That's not exactly what I'm saying. Just that its possible he might have. With Collins anything is not only possible, but very probable too." Sylvester stated. "Its just something to think about before we go in guns blazing and find ourselves in bigger trouble than we first thought." He added, ever the safety campaigner. Because lets face it, if it wasn't for Sylvester voicing these concerns, no one would and then where'd they all be?

"Ok so what you're saying is that these floor plans are useless?" Toby asked, frustration colouring his words as the hope of finding Walter was dampened by the void of the unknown they'd be facing when trying to rescue him.

"Not completely." Sylvester said, giving a small ray of hope to his friends as he spoke. "That's just the ground floor." His fingers were tapping on the keyboard as he spoke and a new floor-plan loaded onto the big screen. "This is the basement. These walls are brick built and a lot hard to remove or move about. It's a safe bet that this is also where he's keeping Walter." The mathematician stated with a fair bit of confidence too.

"What makes you say that?" Paige asked, her gaze turning from the screen to Sylvester's face in question.

"Well," Sylvester started and nervously pushed his glasses back up his nose before he continued. "The basement has only one exit, toward the back of the building. Its completely sealed in case of floodwaters due to the river running along the back of the property. And the whole of the basement is lead-lined, meaning no signals of any electrical capacity will be able to travel in or out of the basement." He explained, and while the four geniuses seemed to understand, he could tell that Paige was still left behind on the deeper meaning.

"Put it this way, if I wanted to kidnap Walter; a man who is capable of sending morse code messages to remote militant units using only an electrical current and a set of wires, I'd want to keep him in a place that had no possible way of being able to send anything in or out electronically or otherwise." He elaborated for her sake and he could see the moment it all made sense to her. Her eyes widened in realisation and then the concerned frown marred her face as she turned quickly back to the floor-plans on the screen.

Paige's heart sped up in her chest as she stared at the three sets of internal walls, surrounded by the external walls around the building. Her mind conjuring images of Walter trapped in that incommunicable prison with a man who was less than unstable in his own mind, the longer she stared. One of those innocent looking rooms held the-love-of-her-life prisoner, with no regards to his wishes or needs. She felt hot and then cold at the thought of him in danger like this. She'd faced many scenarios where she could have easily lost him to one danger or another… but during those times, he at least knew she cared for his well-being. For his survival.

This time…

She squared her shoulders and straightened her back. This time was no different. She just needed to show him that before something unthinkable happened.

They needed to find him fast.

"Ok, so these plans are pretty much useless except for locating Walter in the basement somewhere." She said in summary. "We've faced worse odds and come out the other side just fine. This should be no different." She added, her tone was strong, but the underlying fear was ever-present. It was in all of them. She could see her own fears reflected back in their eyes as they looked to her for direction.

"What if we use a heat detecting camera on Birdroni 2.0? Wouldn't that give us a better view of what's inside?" Ralph asked from his perch by Sylvester's desk. Paige turned her expectant gaze on the geniuses for the answer.

"That could work. We'd be able to direct the teams going in from that point of view and we'd be able to minimise time looking for the kidnap victims and maximise rescue efficiency." Happy replied as she moved to her workshop area and pulled out the newly improved Birdroni 2.0 and several camera components.

"Could we also install the new 'follow me' software to have it follow a set group as they move through the building?" Ralph asked as he moved to join Happy at her workstation. The two began piecing together bits of equipment and Paige felt herself get emotional again just by watching him. Ralph had been so withdrawn these past few weeks because of what had happened. It was nice to see him being so involved again, but the underlying fact that it was to rescue his idol didn't escape her.

"While they're geeking out over there; Paige, Sly, I think we need to consider the possibility that there may be more than three victims here. We need to figure out a way to rescue them all with the assumption that they will not be able to move unassisted." Toby said, pulling Paige's attention completely under his spell. Her look of confused horror told him all he needed to know to guess what her next question would be.

"What do you mean?" She asked just as he predicted.

"I mean that Collins isn't one to waste resources. He's been trying to delay us from the start. Leaving Cabe in critical condition and setting off a bomb made us waste precious time in looking for Walter - which gave him time to get further away and ahead on his twisted plans." Toby explained, and Sylvester caught on quickly.

"And with Cabe again at the hospital. He was stalling us remotely." The math genius added as it came to him.

"Precisely. Kidnapping Abigail and Amberle were only one use of the victims – to control their loved ones; Florence and the doctor. But Collins would see another use for them; distractions." Toby elaborated and this time Florence continued the thought with a fear that slowly drained her face of any colour as the thought dawned on her.

"He'll set up traps. And use them as a trap to keep us busy while he gets what he wants from Walter." The thought of her sister in a trap built by the crazy man she'd been taking orders from only yesterday was horrifying to her.

And Paige felt her own blood freeze and then melt through the floor. The memory of the trap Collins had set up when he'd kidnapped Toby had been cruel and elaborate and it had taken them more time than they could afford to figure out a way to save him. In the end it had been a huge risk on Happy's part that had saved the day. To put innocent bystanders in that position…

To put a two year old baby in that position…

"Ok, what do you have in mind Toby?" She asked, her voice wavered but her resolve didn't. They were going to rescue the victims. All of them, and then Collins was going to pay slowly and painfully for all his misdoings.

That was a promise Paige was going to keep.

* * *

_**A/N:** *Source: info taken from Wikipedia_


	16. Ch15: Single Point of Failure Cont

**Mind Games**

**Summary:** What do you get when you cross a depressed emotionally ill-equipped genius with a logical acidic solution?

**Disclaimer:** This is a fan-fiction story of the TV Series: Scorpion, and is in no way affiliated with the actual story/series in any of the aforementioned media. All characters and other materials related to the show that are used are not intended to infringe on any Copyrights. Elemental-Zer0 takes sole responsibility for any mistakes or offence that may be taken but truly not meant. However, any characters that are not related to any copyrights are copyrighted to Elemental-Zer0, as are any adaptions/variations to the plot set out in the original author's story/plot.

**Authors Note: **Chapter Fifteen… Ok so he wasn't quite our spunky Walter in the last chapter. This time he's getting back to himself… I hope. Also, I do love how you all think there will be a traditional 'make up' scene in this story… I'd recommend thinking outside the box on this one… 😉

No flames please. If you have any criticism to make please do it _politely_ otherwise, I shall ignore your words. (It's happened before, I'm sorry to say, and I hadn't even posted any real chapters…)

* * *

_**Chapter Fifteen: Single Point of Failure Cont.**_

The _pain_ was intense. Walter couldn't stop himself screaming out even though logically he knew there was no point to it. The scream of pain was primarily used to alert clan members to your perilous situation. As he'd pointed out when Toby had been snatched, the octaves of the scream would rise and lower in hopes of being heard over various distances and frequencies. But Walter knew that his 'clan-mates' were not within earshot to hear him. Knowing Collins, no one would be around to hear him.

So, the exercise of screaming out was pointless.

Yet he couldn't stop himself.

The pain was _intense_.

"Almost done." Collins cooed, more to himself than to reassure Walter, because if he'd really cared for his former friend's well-being, none of this would have happened to begin with. "Just gotta set up a few booby traps in case your friends decide to tamper with my work." He muttered to himself.

And that scared Walter even more… but also gave him a slither of hope too.

Fear was not something he was accustomed to giving in to. It was a feeling he was well acquainted with, especially during some of their most dangerous cases where one if not all of his team had been in danger. And he'd be lying to himself if he'd said he'd never felt fear for himself when it was only him in firing line. The difference between those times and now was that he'd been free and able to move in order to get himself and the others out of danger. At the moment, being restrained the way he was, was proving to be a difficult obstacle to overcome any danger currently presenting itself to him.

But it was in that moment, something inside Walter seemed to awaken. Call it dignity, or pride, or just a perverse form of spite, but for some reason Walter felt he _had_ to survive this. His previous feelings of loss and no future had vanished all thanks to Collins. As poetic as that was in the grand scheme of things, it wasn't for any reason Collins would have his audience think.

It was something Collins had said. It was just one pivotal comment, but its meaning was so powerful;

'…_in case your friends decide to tamper with my work_…'

This sparked a hazy memory of another comment he'd made earlier, when Walter was only just coming around from his imposed sleep. '_…__But then your pesky team would no doubt show up and dramatize some form of rescue…_' It had been just when he first woke up and hadn't realised who had been talking.

Collins would have had no reason to say either comments if his friends weren't already acting. They were coming for him. Just like he first believed.

"You know, it was difficult to get this prototype working the way I wanted it to," Collins spoke as he continued his rudimentary brain surgery on Walter and cutting through the younger geniuses thoughts. "The chip just wasn't designed to influence one's brain like I wanted it to. So, I had to use consequential aversion to disobedience." He continued through Walter's grunts and cries of pain. "Which in layman's terms means I have to use 'persuasion' to make you do things." A nasty rivet of pain lanced through his skull just as Collins made that comment and Walter gave a shriek as the white-hot agony set every single nerve ending on fire. "Just like that." Collins said with a smirk. Not that Walter could see it, but he definitely heard the smugness in his voice.

"Of course, that's not the only glitch we have to worry about." Collins continued as though they were having a pleasant conversation in a café somewhere. "There's the standard metal detectors and magnets; don't go getting inside any MRI machines any time soon." He said as though warning someone about the weather. "But there will be other side effects too. Overuse will cause migraine level headaches. Extreme temperature and pressure changes will give you a nasty case of vertigo and fatigue. You'll faint for sure." Walter swallowed thickly as he listened to all the issues Collins was causing him not just now, but quite possibly for the rest of his life from this moment on.

"And let's not forget the tech side of things; you'll be extremely sensitive to electromagnetic fields. Monitors, cell phones, TV masts and pylons will all resonate with you in various uncomfortable ways I'd imagine." Collins carried on. Walter felt his blood run cold. "But there's plus sides too; you'll be able to receive signals straight into your head! And even manipulate simple, rudimentary tech to an extent." He said with an excited tone. "Imagine changing the song on an mp3 player with nothing but a thought. I'm telling you Walt, this is the future… right here, in your head." The mad man's voice had taken on a hint of awe. "You should be thanking me for this." He added as an afterthought before turning back to his work.

"The BBI original research was miles away from anything like this. I can't believe you could put this altogether with what I could remember from my additional progress." Walter fumed, "The most advanced the field ever got was understand when someone was thing left or right. How can you possibly have made the leap to controlling simple electronics?" He asked. His belief in Collins' claims were evident, which to him made it pointless to install into an unwilling guinea-pig for testing, especially since it sounded like the glitches far outweighed the benefits of the chip.

"You think I'm just going to give up my secrets?" Collins asked, "You're the one who had the truth serum, not me. I get to keep my secrets." The mad man said, still fiddling around inside Walter's head. "One day, you'll learn that I have always been the better scientist. And going by my calculations and mechanical engineering, that 'one day' could be sooner than you'd imagine."

"Doesn't matter what you do, my friends will stop you." Walter managed to grunt out between bouts of suffering. And as clichéd as it had sounded, Walter found himself believing it wholeheartedly. He felt Collins pause, the weight of his disbelieving stare was heavy in Walter's chest, but he refused to believe otherwise.

"You still think they're coming for you?" The mad man scoffed and went back to his work inside Walter's skull. It was key-hole surgery, so it was tricky to install the new-and-improved, Collins-edition BBI chip but he was a patient man. He'd been instigating Walter's isolation for a while now, so he'd be damned if he let this become an issue. "They're mindless monkeys and you'll start to believe it or the consequences…" He trailed off and flicked a switch by his hip for effect. The pain that assaulted Walter's senses was mind blowing. He cried out. He couldn't stop it, just like all the times before. Collins flicked the switch again and the pain receded just as quickly as it had started. "…will be painful." Collins finished his comment.

Walter was breathing heavily; the constant bouts of intense pain were wearing him down physically. It was exhausting to keep tensing with the waves of pain that were sporadic and unpredictable. He writhed at the restraints again, twisting his wrists and ankles with the desperation of a man at his wits end.

And really, he was at his wits end. There had to be an escape. Something Collins failed to foresee, or control perfectly. But try as he might, his options were severely limited. The only weapon he currently had at his disposal was his voice and his mind. And so far, both were occupied with regulating pain and screams on cue to Collins' mechanisms inside Walter's brain.

But he did have one more ace up his sleeve. One he hadn't known he even had until now.

His friends.

It had been easy to hear the lie in Collins' voice. And the threat to believe otherwise was also a strong indicator that his friends were indeed making progress in locating and rescuing him.

"You can threaten me with as much pain as you want." Walter ground out between heavy huffs of air. "You can't lie to me. I know they're coming." He said and held back a whine of pain when Collins chose to be a little less careful at Walter's comments, but Walter was not put off. "You'd better have a plan for when they get here. There won't be a place dark enough to hide in; they'll find you and when they do…" Another scream ripped through his throat as Collins flicked the switch again. It lasted longer than the previous times and Walter found tears sliding down the sides of his face when it was finally over. His chest heaved and his muscles felt tense and raw. The energy it took to just keep awake was almost too much.

"You know what Walter, you talk too much." Collin's said decisively, and Walter felt another trickle of fear run down his spine. What had he just pushed Collins to do? "I'm practically done now, just a few tweaks to finish." The escaped convict stated as he shifted around outside of Walter's field of vision.

Realisation hit Walter when a cold sensation made itself known in his arm. The one with the anaesthetic IV drip in.

"And I don't need you awake for this last bit."

Walter's eyes fluttered as he fought the drug. It was startling at how quickly the sedative took him and before he knew he'd lost the fight for consciousness; his body went lax and the drug took him completely.


	17. Ch16: Heroes, we are not

**Mind Games**

**Summary:** What do you get when you cross a depressed emotionally ill-equipped genius with a logical acidic solution?

**Disclaimer:** This is a fan-fiction story of the TV Series: Scorpion, and is in no way affiliated with the actual story/series in any of the aforementioned media. All characters and other materials related to the show that are used are not intended to infringe on any Copyrights. Elemental-Zer0 takes sole responsibility for any mistakes or offence that may be taken but truly not meant. However, any characters that are not related to any copyrights are copyrighted to Elemental-Zer0, as are any adaptions/variations to the plot set out in the original author's story/plot.

**Authors Note: **Chapter Sixteen… I honestly thought this story would have fizzled out by now. Your lovely comments seem to have kept it alive in my heart and on this site. Thanks guys 😊.

No flames please. If you have any criticism to make please do it _politely_ otherwise, I shall ignore your words. (It's happened before, I'm sorry to say, and I hadn't even posted any real chapters…)

* * *

_**Chapter Sixteen: Heroes, we are not…**_

It had taken much longer than the team had been comfortable with to finally get to the site where they had 'pinged' Collin's to have originally sent the communications to Florence's phone from. From the outside it didn't look like anything special; white washed walls, a flat roof, two floors; one ground level and a basement. The windows were boarded up from the inside, no doubt Collins had been paranoid about snipers and peekers.

The team had to be guided to the back of the building opposite the warehouse Collins had taken over to maximise the element of surprise. It was a Homeland decision which Toby believed was pointless.

"Collins knows we're coming. There will be no element of surprise. He's likely got a few traps set up with our other missing victims and when we start our rescue mission, they will no doubt send a silent alarm to Collins to alert him that we're here. Wasting time in this building is pointless." He argued and the Director of Homeland who was on the screen of a laptop via secured satellite communications stared back at him with a glare that could freeze most men's hearts. But Toby knew what he was talking about. He wasn't afraid of an authoritative lady, he was married to one for heaven's sake. What he _was_ afraid of, was wasting precious time. Time was what Collins wanted. And what Walter didn't have.

"The Commander is in charge Doctor Curtis; if you want to be part of this operation, you'll follow his command." The Director stated but Toby slammed his fist on the table with a snarl.

"No! _You_ listen. Collins is buying time. Time we are wasting. It's how he works. We need to act faster than he can anticipate, or we'll be rescuing corpses." He said vehemently. The action and the comments took the Director by surprise, but the Commander in question gave his argument just as passionately.

"If we just go out there with out a plan, we'll all be corpses." He said squaring off his shoulders to the smaller man, but Toby was not intimidated in the least.

"No, we won't. You all forget that we know this man inside and out. We know how the bastard thinks. He's the elaborate trap type. He thrives on testing our mental barriers; the way we think. If he kills us, there's no one left to impress or stroke his ego." Toby threw back and it was in that moment that Paige stepped in between the two men to address the Director.

"Director, Commander." She addressed, "I understand you're both worried about the body count going up, but Collins hasn't yet killed anyone. He's kidnapped and blackmailed. But he hasn't killed yet." She placated.

"There's no telling what a trapped man will resort to Ms. Dineen." The Director countered but Paige had an answer already.

"No, but he's been cornered before and still hasn't committed murder." She argued but the Director wasn't finished.

"But he would have at the Nuclear plant. He refused to give the codes to the radio tower. That in my opinion was intent to murder thousands of innocent people in the area." The stern woman said. "And again, when he kidnapped Doctor Curtis whom he also planned to kill." She added.

"And yet he didn't, because the people in charge _listened_ to us." Paige threw back, and the Director was quiet after her comment. "It's a difficult call to make. But the geniuses you hired for this very scenario are telling you the best way forward with this operation and you are ignoring them. The same geniuses are responsible for solving these very same scenarios because they were believed in. They're not acting irrationally just because one of their own is in danger; you said so yourself, Toby was kidnapped by Collins before and the team was able to function perfectly then. We've got more to lose than you do in this scenario. Do you really think we're going to risk a sloppy rescue just because one of our own is the rescue target? If anything, we're going to act more cautiously because of it." Paige continued. Toby took the hint and followed with a calmer explanation of his view.

"I'm not suggesting we go in guns blazing. Just that we need to act faster than we are now." He said, "Waiting here for confirmation that there aren't any traps outside the building is pointless. He's not the kind to just trap or kill. He's delaying us. He'll have the victims in various death-defying contraptions with a countdown of some kind. He'll be testing our resolve to free those trapped. We can't do that if we're stuck or dead." He said. "Collins wants us in the building being delayed. That's why I know there are no traps outside the building." He added confidently.

"He's too careful for that." Sylvester piped up from behind them all. "If someone accidentally got caught in a trap; a passerby or a stray animal, the attention would have been on him long before he was ready for it." He said and slowly, the team could see the understanding light up in both in the Director and the Commander.

"Ok, I get it. You think you know what you're talking about." The Commander said but Happy cut in before he could finish his comment.

"We don't think we know, dirtbag, we just _know_. And the sooner you believe it the sooner we can get on with this rescue mission." She growled, but before the Commander could reply she turned to the team. "I'm done listening to these hyped up monkeys. I'm going in now." She stated and without waiting for anyone's permission, she picked up her pack; which held any essential tools she could fit in from her toolbox, and started off toward the exit. The Commander moved to stop her, but Toby put himself in front of the man with a glare that he'd never again be able to muster lest Happy were in danger.

"You even think about touching my wife and they'll never find your body." He threatened before grabbing his own med bag and followed Happy out of the door. The rest of the Scorpion/Centipede alliance followed suit and exited the building before anyone could think to stop them.

"What now?" Paige asked as she fell in step with Toby.

"Now, we ask Ralph and Flo if he can see anything from Birdroni 2.0." He replied as he placed his comm link in his ear. The others followed suit as Paige replied.

"That's not what I meant. We just defied the Homeland Security Director. Isn't that some kind of treason?" She asked. Not that she wasn't happy they were finally doing something, but the consequences would eventually catch up to them, she was sure of that.

"We're not military or under their command. We privately consult. They have no control or authority over us there." Sylvester said. "However, they could deny us any payments owed and technically we'd be trespassing on a crime scene, but as its unconfirmed whether this is a crime scene yet there's no grounds for prosecution. They can also threaten to never ask for our services again too but that would be detrimental to their own goals." He explained, his voice was fast and nervous, but he seemed to calm down a little. The facts and the lecture doing wonders to calm him down enough to walk across the road and approach the building they believed a deranged psychopath was currently residing in.

"Yeah, you heard her lady-ship when she took Cabe. She said, '_Scorpion's not been as successful now that it's only three members strong. I'd rather not have to explain to my superiors about the drop in successful case closures._'" Toby added as they came to the perimeter of the building's boundary lines. "She needs us." He added.

"I'm still not sure what benefit I bring to this. I still feel I could be more useful from the office." Sylvester said as they all paused to take in the seemingly innocent building.

"We have no idea what awaits us in this building Sly." Toby answered him. "We need every molecule of brain power we have right now, and you are one of the smartest." He added with a pat to the mathematician's back.

"How comforting." Sylvester muttered to himself, his concern still very evident.

"Walter needs us Sly." Paige said softly, her eyes never leaving the building. "And, so does Abigail and Amberle." She added. "We can't do this without you." She glanced at Sylvester who had turned to listen to her. He gave her a brief and grateful nod as he surrendered himself to the task at hand.

"Ralph, Flo, what can you see?" Toby asked as they stood before the building, reminding them all that they had some form of back up from their office HQ too. Ralph and Florence would be watching any temperature changes and heat/cold signatures from above so as to warn of any changes or dangerous areas that may be in their path.

"Looks like there are four life signs inside which accounts for all our missing victims and Collins." Florence reported back. The group dutifully ignored the slight hitch in her throat as she clearly imagined one of them being her sister.

"There's one on your level and three in the basement." Ralph's voice added. "Do you think one of them is Walter?" He asked, and his innocent question reminded them all of what was at stake.

"We hope so baby." Paige replied and her heart thrummed achingly in her chest as she turned her gaze back to the unassuming building before them. Walter was in here somewhere. He had to be.

They were so close.

"Let's go get our boy." Happy said. She took the first step forward and lead the team onto the property with a confident stride.

* * *

A quiet alarm suddenly made itself known just as Collins had managed to finish sewing up Walter's hairline. The operation hadn't required him to shave any hair off, only a few circular patches from the initial brain probes he'd used for the initial synchronisation for the chip. All of which would be missed if no one looked too closely. But the stitches for the Collins-modified-BBI-chip he'd implanted were quite visible just above Walter's left temple and eyebrow. The metal head restraint would have prevented Walter from seeing what he'd been doing but to minimise any chances of Walter figuring out how to undo his traps, he'd placed a screen to shield Walter's view of the operation from any angle he could imagine.

The mad genius turned to look at the alarm that was bleeping on the console dashboard. He'd built it to control the security measures and the traps he'd set up inside the building. He put the stitch needle down and strode to the dashboard while removing the medical gloves from his hands. A quick glance over his shoulder showed him Walter's lax features. The younger genius was still completely out cold and would remain that way until the sedative in the IV was turned off.

He was almost done with phase two of his plan. Phase three would be the long game; the waiting, and the data collection process. With the prototype now installed and ready to work, it was only a matter of time before he could improve his initial work and start a second draft of the chip for his ultimate purpose.

He was a patient man; he knew that time was something he had to work with in order to attain his ulterior goal.

But time was not quite playing ball today. The alarm; a motion detector that looks specifically for human sized intruders had alerted him to the arrival of the rescue crew.

It seems he'd have to start his escape plan sooner than he'd hoped for. But he had planned for unexpected developments. His escape would be unhindered. And he'd wait for the data to transmit from Walter's chip to his remote relays back that would send the data to his final hiding place.

His plan wasn't flawless, he knew. He'd factored for as many scenarios as he could, but he knew he was only mortal and that the scenarios were endless. However, he knew the team; he knew what they were capable of and with his recent observations of them through the garage spy bots and the current rescue attempt, he knew enough to know what to expect from them. They were predictable. Their compassion to help everyone they can will be the reason he escapes completely.

There was just one last step to do, and then the final trap to set and he'd be ready to leave. He turned to observe his old friend who lay sleeping in the isolation tube he'd built for this very reason.

This trap was going to be his pièce de résistance.

But first, he had a software to program to run.


	18. Ch17: The Schrodinger Theorem Part 1

**Mind Games**

**Summary:** What do you get when you cross a depressed emotionally ill-equipped genius with a logical acidic solution?

**Disclaimer:** This is a fan-fiction story of the TV Series: Scorpion, and is in no way affiliated with the actual story/series in any of the aforementioned media. All characters and other materials related to the show that are used are not intended to infringe on any Copyrights. Elemental-Zer0 takes sole responsibility for any mistakes or offence that may be taken but truly not meant. However, any characters that are not related to any copyrights are copyrighted to Elemental-Zer0, as are any adaptions/variations to the plot set out in the original author's story/plot.

**Authors Note: **Chapter Seventeen!

No flames please. If you have any criticism to make please do it _politely_ otherwise, I shall ignore your words. (It's happened before, I'm sorry to say, and I hadn't even posted any real chapters…)

* * *

_**Chapter Seventeen: The Schrodinger Theorem Part 1**_

The opening of the main door to the building would be a minor annoyance for Happy Quinn; her expert lock-smithing would have the multiple padlocks off in a few minutes. There were thirty of them, all in various states of newness to decaying and brittle. Each one was a different type of lock too, to really test their skills of breaking in.

Clearly there was no way Collins could have locked these all from the inside, so there must have been another way in but a quick discussion indicated that this was clearly the obvious starting point. It was agreed that any other way in would most likely be booby trapped and would not fare well for their kidnapped victims. They came to the reluctant conclusion that they'd have to play the game until they could find a way to circumvent the directions Collins' creations would no doubt be guiding them in.

Happy set to work immediately.

However, the delay had given the Homeland Commander time to assemble his team and follow the headstrong geniuses into the building's apparently un-trapped courtyard. With guns cocked and ready for anything, the Commander sent the majority of his team to do a perimeter check and watch any other exits for escape attempts while four remained with him as backup for the geniuses.

"You got some balls just walking up to a dangerous site like that." The Commander groused at them as he sidled up to the team. "But you've proved your point." He also added with a respectful nod. "I trust you to know what you're talking about. But you gotta trust me to keep you alive too." He said by way of an olive branch. "I promise to listen if you do."

Toby gave him a once over before turning to Paige. "He's being honest." He said. Paige stared at the man for a moment while Happy continued removing padlocks at breakneck speed.

"We need you to listen completely to us. Don't disregard anything we say no matter how outlandish or risk worthy it sounds." Paige said clearly. "You're a man of action and quick reflexes. We need you to be the opposite of that in there." She added just as Happy made it to the half way point of the locks.

"The things we'll be facing in there will tempt you to act first and think later." Toby added as they continued waiting. "That's the trap though. You need to wait for our signal on how to proceed despite the obvious danger. One wrong move and we lose a life. Maybe several." He explained and could see the Commander getting a little offended.

"This ain't my first rescue rodeo." He replied tersely.

"I don't doubt that for a second Commander." Toby admitted, "But it is your first time against Collins. And your first time working with us. I can guarantee you'll have never experienced anything like it before." He finished just as Happy managed to get through the final lock.

"I'm in." She declared before jumping up from her crouch and pulling the door open. They surged as one into the dully lit building, more than ready to get the missing victim's home.

* * *

Another alarm beeped at him in a staccato rhythm. The main door had been opened in record timing. Collins gave a smirk; Happy had been practising it seems.

He was almost done with Walter's trap. Just a few more touches here and there and he'd be ready to leave the place forever. He could barely contain the grin that sprang into place on his face.

* * *

The scene that greeted them gave them all pause. It was a box room, both sides were bricked off completely, and done properly too. Collins must have hired a few builders to have pulled this off. Behind them was the doorway to the courtyard and before them was another wall. This one was plaster boarded with a large screen and a door with no window.

Happy approached carefully but Toby stopped her from touching the door handle.

"I think the screen is a hint that we don't want to open that door without knowing more than we do now." He said and as he said it, the TV sprang to life. The screen was blue for a moment, before the image of Mark Collins appeared.

"Did ya miss me?" The screen asked with such a smug tone and grin that Toby had to stop Happy from punching it and destroying their only chance at getting through these 'tests'.

"Looks like we're not the ones you have to worry about acting first and thinking later." The Commander muttered to Paige, being sure to stay out of Happy's earshot when he did. Paige gave him a sideways glance and the barest hint of a smile passed her lips before her attention was on the screen again.

"I know you're looking for Walter, but I have another person here who would very much appreciate you rescuing her. Would you be so kind?" The video of Collins spoke again, and it was just as they'd feared; Collins was using the victims he'd kidnapped to delay them. The screen changed to that of a young woman with scraggly hair that could have been blonde at one point, with thin features and a striking resemblance to Florence.

This must be Abigail.

The camera zoomed out to show the situation. Abigail was stood inside a clear enclosed tank of some format. Like a fish tank but bigger and on its side. Her hands were handcuffed behind her back and her ankles had a set of cuffs on them too. She had a gag secured in her mouth but was otherwise not restrained. The tank like cage did not give much room for her to move about though, not even to sit down comfortably.

"This is Abigail. Though I'm sure you know of her by now. This is who I've been keeping young Florence in line with." Collins voice came through the tv screen, but the camera remained on Abigail. "Yes, I know 'so horrible of me to do such a thing just to break your pretty little team apart.' Boo me…" Collins voice mocked them as they screen continued to pan out to the full view of the room. There was nothing in it, just the tank. "This is quite the Schrodinger. You see the moment you opened the first door with all my collection of padlocks, the air for the sealed tank was cut off. But wait, there's more!" The voice said in an overly commercial way, and halted both Happy's and the Commander's steps toward the door. "If you open _this_ door, the air valve will open but so will the water valve. And there's one more trick inside that will trigger when you open the door but I'm sure you'll figure out that one when you see it." And with that there was an electric click and the screen was shut off.

Nobody moved for a few seconds. Paige's heart hammered in her chest. The situation was hopeless. If they don't open the door Abigail suffocates, if they do, she drowns. And then there's that extra unknown surprise. What should they do?

What would Walter do?

Time slowed down a little for her as the answer came to her in a surprise of inspiration; he'd find out which one would give them more time to analyze the situation. And who could calculate that better than…

"Sly, can you estimate how long it would take for her to suffocate and how long it would take for a tank that size to fill up?" She asked and all eyes turned to Sylvester who looked a little panicked.

"From what I could see I'd estimate she has around twenty minutes of air before she dies. But I can't calculate how quickly the tank would fill with water without knowing how fast the water would be flowing." The mathematician replied.

"We should assume it would be about the same time or longer. Collins knows we can't leave her in there, he knows we'll go in to rescue her. He also wants to panic us into doing that so we would be caught in his next delay." Toby theorised. "He'll want us in there to delay us from getting to him. So we should assume that the water won't fill too quickly but quick enough that he'll have time to carry on his plans."

"The only factor we don't have details on is that secret trap he's set up." Happy interjected into the conversation.

"So, what do we do?" Paige asked as she eyed the door. The team turned to the door and a moment of hesitation occurred.

The Toby stepped forward. "We go in." he said simply.

"Won't that start the water? And this unknown trap?" The Commander asked, unsure if he could warrant putting someone in danger like that knowingly.

"We can't solve the tank issue from out here in less than twenty minutes." Toby countered.

"At least inside we can see the new surprise and based on Toby's assumptions we should have time to figure out how to get Abigail out of the tank." Sylvester added. Toby place his hand on the handle and checked for any more objections.

That was when the Commander stepped forward. "Stand back from the door." He said. Toby hesitated for a moment, unsure of the man's intention was. "I'm trained for incoming projectiles from a door opening mechanism." The Commander stated as he took Toby's place by the door which the doctor wordless surrendered with no arguments. "It's my job to keep you brains safe remember?" He said as he signaled his other agents into place. Two herded the three geniuses and Paige to the outside and barred the doorway in case something came out of the as-yet-unopened door to attack.

When nothing jumped out to attack, the commander carefully stepped inside the room. The silence was utterly tormenting before the man stepped back outside to beckon the others inside. What they saw made everything ten times worse than it already was…

How were they supposed to solve this?!


	19. Ch18: The Schrodinger Theorem Part 2

**Mind Games**

**Summary:** What do you get when you cross a depressed emotionally ill-equipped genius with a logical acidic solution?

**Disclaimer:** This is a fan-fiction story of the TV Series: Scorpion, and is in no way affiliated with the actual story/series in any of the aforementioned media. All characters and other materials related to the show that are used are not intended to infringe on any Copyrights. Elemental-Zer0 takes sole responsibility for any mistakes or offence that may be taken but truly not meant. However, any characters that are not related to any copyrights are copyrighted to Elemental-Zer0, as are any adaptions/variations to the plot set out in the original author's story/plot.

**Authors Note: **Chapter Eighteen - its a bit short so sorry for that… and I know I'm savage with the cliff hangers. Sorry! #notsorry

No flames please. If you have any criticism to make please do it _politely_ otherwise, I shall ignore your words. (It's happened before, I'm sorry to say, and I hadn't even posted any real chapters…)

_**Chapter Eighteen: The Schrodinger Theorem Part 2**_

* * *

"Lasers?!" Toby yelled out in frustration. And Paige could feel it too as she stared at the horrible re-envisioned nightmare of Toby's floss maze prison but re-enacted with lasers. A quick test from Happy's tissue proved that the lasers were the powerful type when the tissue caught fire and went up in smoke where she'd been forced to drop it.

This was impossible.

"Uh guys, if I'm calculating this right, Abigail has about twenty four point seven minutes before that water level reaches above her head." Sylvester's voice brought Paige's attention to the tank again and she could now see that the poor woman was crying and struggling to break free while a flow of water drenched her from above. "And uh, the angles for this labyrinth of lasers are too big to fit an average person through. The average flexibility to be able to get through those tight angles would have to be professional gymnastic level and they would have to be approximately 170cm tall and no more than 50cm wide." And Paige felt her stomach hit the floor.

"I'm going to assume that the lever on the side of the tank either does something to release and/or stop the water, or does something to the lasers." Happy added her two cents as she pointed toward a small red handled lever on the side of the base of the tank. "I'm going to assume it's the lasers and that there's a mechanical test to shut off the water, that would keep us delayed longer and focused on the rescue." She added as she squinted and leaned to one side to get a clearer view of the tank that sat across the room behind the laser labyrinth.

"Ok but we don't have anyone flexible enough to get through those lasers." Toby pointed out. He was clearly wracking his brain for a solution here, as were Happy and Sylvester, but Paige already knew the answer. She was flexible enough from her days of cheer-leading, and strong enough from her days of life-guarding, to pull it off. It'd be tight in places and she was a little rusty on some of her flexes, but she could do it.

This part of the test was for her. Collins was testing her resolve to save the sister of woman who had ruined hers and Walter's relationship.

"I can do it." She called out as she started stripping off her coat and anything that would dangle and hang. She needed to be as skin tight as possible for this.

"What?!" Toby cried out in surprise. He moved to stand before the ex-waitress to try and talk her out of the insane idea she had.

"No Paige!" Sylvester argued and also moved to prevent her from going through with the plan.

Even the Commander put his hand on her shoulder to stop her. "One of my men can do it. We're trained in flexibility as well as strength. This is the sort of thing we're trained for." He said but even he knew there was no way one of his men, even the smallest one, would be able to make some of the turns and folds needed to get through the angles involved. And it showed too. The angles and the tight squeezes were not designed for the male anatomy. They all knew it.

"Guys!" She called out. And they all quietened. "I'm the logical choice. This is clearly a test for me. Collins knows I was a cheerleader in my school days and that I was a lifeguard too. And it's no coincidence that he wants me to rescue Flo's sister either." She pointed out. They couldn't argue her case.

"There's got to be another way." Toby finally said, the panic and concern was clear on his face. "Happy, baby, please, tell me there's another way we can get through these lasers." He tried as he turned to the mechanical genius, who was staring at the lasers intently. There was nothing she could do. The lasers were embedded in the walls, no screws or machinations for her to get her hands on. The walls were one solid concrete block too so without her heavy duty machinery she'd never get to the lasers themselves. They didn't have the time for that either. And she was clearly not as flexible as Paige.

But then something caught her eye in the middle of the floor. Was that a loose flooring panel? If someone could get to the panel, it might expose some of the wires and machinations behind the whole room. She needed to see what was under that panel but there was no way Happy was going to get to it with the lasers still intact. She turned to the ex-waitress with a serious gaze.

"Are you sure you can do this?" She asked as she started to help Paige lose anything loose on her person.

"Happy!" Toby exclaimed.

"I have to." Paige replied with more confidence than she felt she had. Happy nodded as she stepped back to point out the panel.

"There's a loose panel in the floor just ten feet into the laser pit. I have a feeling it's the conduit circuit board for the lasers. If I'm right, its loose for a reason. Remember when I said the lever was for the lasers? I think I was wrong, I think the lever drains the water instead. The floor slopes ever so slightly to the middle where that panel is. My guess is that the water is supposed to drain into the floor and into that panel which would then short the circuit board and turn off the lasers." Happy explained and pointed to the loose panel.

"That could buy us time back!" Sylvester added, "The distance to the tank from here is much greater than the distance to the panel. If you move at one foot per minute, you'll be at the panel in ten minutes as opposed to the twenty-five it will take you to get to the other side." He added helpfully. And Paige had to admit, ten minutes in a death trap was much more preferable to a twenty-five-minute stint. Toby still looked concerned though.

"It's going to be tight but if you can get it open and feed a camera inside, I can talk you through disengaging the lasers." Happy continued as she took her rucksack off and started digging through the tools she had hidden inside. She pulled out a head-strap camera and a set of miniature tools on a key-ring. "This will help me see what you see." Happy said as she turned on the camera and helped Paige to tie her hair up into a bun before putting the headgear on and tightening it so it didn't fall off. "And these are the only small enough tools you can hide in your bra. There's wire cutters, a knife and every kind of screwdriver you can think of." Happy continued but hesitated a little when she handed them over. "Be careful with them. They were my first birthday present from my dad." She added a little softer. Paige wanted to hand them back, but time was not on their side if they dallied too long. Instead she gave Happy a meaningful nod before attaching the key-ring to her bra strap and tucking the small toolkit into her bra where it wouldn't fall out and hit a laser in her many flexible twists and turns.

"Paige, are you sure you can do this?" Toby asked a she stood himself in front of her and gripped her upper arms in some kind of solidarity move. Paige gave him a level stare, one she couldn't enunciate with words. He analyzed it for a moment then gave her arms a reassuring squeeze. "Just be careful." He iterated with an intensity that was a little out of character for him. "It will be hot in there. Those lasers are giving off a high heat. You'll be sweaty and the risk of slipping is immense." He warned as she shook herself quickly to loosen her muscles. She nodded, showing him that she understood what he was saying and that she'd be careful.

Ten feet. That's all it was.

Just ten feet of flexing and stretching in ways she hadn't done for years.

Inside a death-defying laser labyrinth trap.

No big deal.

Right?


	20. Ch19: The Schrodinger Theorem Part 3

**Mind Games**

**Summary:** What do you get when you cross a depressed emotionally ill-equipped genius with a logical acidic solution?

**Disclaimer:** This is a fan-fiction story of the TV Series: Scorpion, and is in no way affiliated with the actual story/series in any of the aforementioned media. All characters and other materials related to the show that are used are not intended to infringe on any Copyrights. Elemental-Zer0 takes sole responsibility for any mistakes or offence that may be taken but truly not meant. However, any characters that are not related to any copyrights are copyrighted to Elemental-Zer0, as are any adaptions/variations to the plot set out in the original author's story/plot.

**Authors Note: **Chapter Nineteen… Sorry it's been a while. Had some real life drama to sort out.

No flames please. If you have any criticism to make please do it _politely_ otherwise, I shall ignore your words. (It's happened before, I'm sorry to say, and I hadn't even posted any real chapters…)

* * *

_**Chapter Nineteen: The Schrodinger Theorem Part 3**_

Collins had finally put the last puzzle piece into place. Walter's trap was set. He stood back to admire his handy work for a moment before turning his gaze to the helpless man laid in the isolation tube in the middle of the room. The stitches on his forehead were an angry red and raised slightly against the tight thread-work that held the incision closed. Maybe he should have cleaned his tools a little more before he'd set to work.

Collins shook his head and chuckled to himself. Too late now. The trap was all set up and if he opened the isolation unit now then he'd have to reset the whole trap again and he didn't have time to do that. The 'heroes' would get here before any infection would set in anyway. It wasn't a major issue.

He double checked that the IV line and the cannula switches were still correctly wired up to the trap he'd set and then gave the glass a light tap as he observed Walter's sleeping face. "We could have achieved so much together Walt." He sighed as he lamented over what could have been. "But they just kept feeding you full of inane, irrelevant ideas. And you were ruined before you even knew it." He leaned in closely to the glass that separated Walter's sleeping face from the rest of the world. "But don't worry… I have a plan to save you." He whispered. His tone; to anyone outside of his own perception would call it creepy, but he felt it was a protective affection. Carefully, as though handling the most brittle of glass, he pulled out a slightly used flash-drive from his back pocket. His self-congratulatory grin widened without Collins noticing it. "With this, you will be the man you were before your 'friends' destroyed you." Collins whispered to himself. "I just have to do some tweaks and changes first then I'll be back for you my friend." He promised as he slid the flash-drive back carefully into his back pocket for safe keeping. He looked back up at the sleeping face of the first man he'd ever grown to respect.

"All in due time." Collins bid farewell and turned to the far wall. He pulled a brick from the wall and revealed a small red finger print scanner. He pushed his thumb into the pad to be read by the computer. It turned green and part of the wall clicked open. A hidden door to the sewers beneath the city. They'd been installed years ago when the river's flood waters had caused the basement to flood badly. Collins had managed to modify the drain system into a secret door that he could escape from. He threw his duffel bag down into the tunnel and gave the room one last glance. He'd set the computers here to auto-run. The recordings and the other traps would run just fine without him monitoring them. And if they didn't, it didn't matter anymore. He didn't need any more time, so the delays were just extra comedy value for him to watch on his servers later that evening.

His gaze lingered on Walter's still form for a moment. Disappointment marred his bearded features for a few moments. "Until we meet again old friend." he said more to himself. He shook himself free of the emotion before replacing the brick to re-hide the finger print scanner and then climbed into the secret tunnel and closed the hidden door behind him.

As the door closed, the electric lock clicking into place, the room darkened as per the program he'd set the trap to run. The room would wait now for the next command, which would be triggered when the door to the room was opened.

Until then, it would wait patiently and obediently to enact its commands upon the unsuspecting intruders.

* * *

Paige felt her muscles strain in extremely unnatural ways as she forced her spine to curve in a slightly twisted, downward arch. She had to be extremely careful where that would force her feet to swing or she'd lose a foot. And let's not even mention how close one particular laser beam was to her nose right now. She was so close to the panel that she had to fight the temptation to rush the rest of her contortionist's journey. Getting sloppy now would definitely lose her a few limbs, and the only probably way of rescuing three kidnap victims. With Walter being one of them.

No this wasn't just her battle, there were three souls with her in this laser labyrinth matrix and they were all depending on her to succeed. Failure was not an option.

She slowly brought her feet into a safe and secure position while keeping her stomach above a laser line. She found she could now reach down and lift the loose panel enough to see inside. A jungle of wires and green electricians board greeted and confused her.

"Ok Happy, are you seeing what I'm seeing?" She asked roughly. Her whole body was tensed in a very uncomfortable way and it was exhausting.

"I see it. Looks like Collins work. It's a mess as always." Happy muttered but Paige heard it loud and clear over the comms.

"What do I need to do?" Paige asked, feeling the beginnings of muscle ache in her thighs and feet. If she stayed in this position too long, the risk of a cramp was going to rise. She had to work quickly.

"Hold still, I'm trying to figure out what's what." Happy replied but Paige's arm muscles were started to shake.

"Kinda on a real fast clock here. I can't hold this position for long." She ground back, trying not to sound snippy but felt she could be allowed a little leniency considering her current state of affairs.

"I know, I'm sorry, I'm just struggling to see what's there with the camera shaking." Happy replied, just as tensely.

"Can't you take a snapshot and analyse the wiring from that?" Ralph's voice asked through the comms. Ah sweet Ralph coming to his mommy's rescue.

"Why didn't I think of that?" Happy asked herself before presumably doing just as Ralph had suggested. Paige tried to wait patiently but secretly harboured every ill-mannered word she could think of to urge Happy to work faster.

Her foot slipped a little on the floor and the adrenalin and gasp of air was all the warning she needed to tense her whole body and pull her foot back from the burning heat of a laser line. The hairs on her foot were singed, she could smell it but luckily she hadn't lost a foot yet.

"Ok, do you see the bunch of wires that have three yellow cables in it?" Happy's voice pulled her from her near limb-loss moment and Paige fought to focus on the mass of tangled wires. This sounded so much easier from the side lines.

"Yes. The ones on the left toward the bottom, yes?" She asked, wanting to be absolutely sure she was getting the right wires.

"That's right. There should be a green and blue spiralled wire in that bunch. I need you to cut that one." Happy replied and turned away from the screen for a moment to observe Paige's perilous position.

"Careful with your right elbow, you're dangerously close there." Toby called out from the left side of the sidelines. He and Sylvester were at opposite ends of the safe zone they'd walked into by the door way to help guide Paige through the lasers she couldn't see easily. As per Toby's warning, Paige pulled her elbow in to her torso a little more before reaching into her bra and pulling the toolkit key-ring out. She fumbled for a few minutes trying to awkwardly hold her position with one arm and single out the wire cutters on the small key-ring. Eventually, with a few hair-raising moments of fidgety fumbling, she got the wire cutters in a secure grip. Her grip on the floor however slipped again and a searing pain found her cheek before she caught herself and held the position like a statue.

Every muscle was screaming for relief but she had to cut that damned wire before she could even consider that that thought.

"You ok Paige?" Toby called out cautiously. He was trying to not to spook her he could tell but at the same time, as a doctor he needed to know what to prepare for when he could get to her. But Paige was unable to talk at the moment, the effort of holding her position was literally taking her breath away. Instead she jammed the wire cutters into the bunch she'd been guided to and rummaged around until she got the green and blue spiralled wire between the blades of the cutters. As soon as she had them in place she shot Happy one last questioning glance, wanting to be absolutely sure this was it.

Happy checked her screen and then gave her the thumbs up. That was all she needed to see. She squeezed the cutters like her life depended on it, and realistically, it kinda did.

The wire fell apart easily and just like that, the lasers disappeared. Completely out of energy and shaking from exertion, Paige let herself collapse to the floor and just lie there reveling in the freedom of movement she now had. Before she was aware, Toby was crouched above her checking her cheek where the laser she'd had an intimate interaction with had left its ugly mark.

"You did amazing Paige. Just rest for a moment and let me take a look at that wound." Toby said as his hands rummaged through his med-bag for an alcohol wipe and a gauze pad. In a giddy daze, probably from the adrenalin rush and the flood of endorphins that the constant muscle straining had released, Paige found herself giggling in relief. Toby seemed to understand what was happening and didn't judge. He just worked until she had managed to calm herself down again before speaking to her.

"You took an awfully big risk Paige. I know it's been years since you had to do anything like that. Collins knew it too. You shouldn't have had to put yourself through that." He said as he worked the alcohol wipe over her cheek. It stung like a b****, but it didn't detract her from his comment.

"I know, but I did Toby." She replied. "We need to beat the clock on this one, and we'd have wasted time trying to think of another way. Besides, I had to prove to myself too that I could and would do anything to get Walter back." She elaborated and hissed a little when Toby pushed a tad too hard into the wound. "I guess I just needed to prove I was willing to do whatever it takes, because I have severely lacked in that department since the night we all split from Scorpion." She added as an afterthought.

"Don't risk your life for this Paige. You know Walter would blame himself if you got hurt trying to rescue him." Toby rebuked softly as he applied the small gauze to her cheek. Then he sat back on his haunches and sighed, "Not that I'm much better." He admitted. "I understand why you did it and that you were the best person for the job. You did fantastic." He said by way of congratulations before standing up and offering her his hand to help her up. She gave him a grateful smile and took all the help she could in order to get back on her feet. Every muscle protested vehemently but she still slow walked over to where Happy had crouched down to inspect the lever for any more booby traps.

Abigail was now up to her waist with the water line. It was half way which meant that Paige had actually done the whole bendy thing quicker than she'd thought she had. Sylvester had estimated a good ten minutes but they'd already dallied by the door trying to figure out a way to solve the tests which meant that Paige had probably done it all in around seven or eight minutes. Huh. Maybe she still had it after all?

Abigail however, was clearly urging them to hurry up. Paige's heart went out to the trapped woman. She couldn't imagine going through what this poor girl had.

"Ok no traps. Stand clear, I'm pulling the lever." Happy declared and Toby had to help Paige moved to a safe distance behind the filling tank.

Happy pulled on the lever and ducked down to avoid the assumed plunge of water that should follow a sudden draining.

But after a second of silence. Every eye looked up to the tank in confused horror.

The lever had done nothing.

Abigail was still trapped inside.

And the water was still slowly rising.


	21. Ch20: The Schrodinger Theorem Part 4

**Mind Games**

**Summary:** What do you get when you cross a depressed emotionally ill-equipped genius with a logical acidic solution?

**Disclaimer:** This is a fan-fiction story of the TV Series: Scorpion, and is in no way affiliated with the actual story/series in any of the aforementioned media. All characters and other materials related to the show that are used are not intended to infringe on any Copyrights. Elemental-Zer0 takes sole responsibility for any mistakes or offence that may be taken but truly not meant. However, any characters that are not related to any copyrights are copyrighted to Elemental-Zer0, as are any adaptions/variations to the plot set out in the original author's story/plot.

**Authors Note: **Chapter twenty… So close yet so far away…

No flames please. If you have any criticism to make please do it _politely_ otherwise, I shall ignore your words. (It's happened before, I'm sorry to say, and I hadn't even posted any real chapters…)

* * *

_**Chapter Twenty: **__**The Schrodinger Theorem Part 4**_

The disbelief was palpable. For a moment, no one moved. No one knew what to do. The water was supposed to be draining… but it wasn't. What had the lever done?

As frustrated as they were, they didn't have time for emotions to take control here. Abigail was still trapped, and the water was still rising.

"Can't we smash the glass?" The Commander asked as he watched the scene with a calculated soldier's view. He'd gestured with his gun but hadn't aimed at the glass. It was clear he'd wanted to shoot the glass to release the trapped woman inside.

"Ordinarily yes, but with Collins we never know if there's a trap inside a trap." Sylvester answered as he stood off to one side, keeping tabs on how much longer the poor girl had left before the fast approaching outcome.

"The glass is reinforced. I checked." Happy added, her anger only barely under control. But then, as she looked up to glare at the Commander, something seemed to have caught her eye on his person and an idea flashed into existence. "But…" She began, and the whole room was instantly her captive audience. However, she was unaware of their undivided attention while she approached the Commander and before he could stop her, she pulled a block of C4 that she'd spied, from his flak jacket.

"Hey!" The Commander predictably called out and tried to take the explosive putty back but Happy quickly sidestepped his attempts to regain the stolen property.

"C4 will have just the right concussive power in the correct quantity, and if we place it at a certain angle…" Happy began explaining. Paige stepped in front of the Commander as Happy lost herself to angles and predicted explosions.

"You promised to listen." Paige reminded the man, and when he went to protest, she added, "Remember what I said outside? '_Don't disregard anything we say no matter how outlandish or risk worthy it sounds_' that still applies." She said, her voice strong and stance stern. Though she doubted she could do much if he decided to get physical with his retrieval efforts. Instead, he looked her in the eye, his own seriousness hit her hard, but she held her ground.

"I'm liable for everyone's death on this operation. I'm only sanctioned for one." He growled. The admission on its own sent a chill down Paige's spine. She didn't need to be a genius to know who that 'sanctioned death' was for, and while the crazy genius had done some nasty things, she wasn't entirely sure that his actions completely warranted such a sanction. Life in prison maybe… but death? "Excuse me for being concerned when one of your brains puts all of that in jeopardy." The commander continued, bringing Paige back to herself rapidly, but he'd turned his watchful eyes back to the C4 in Happy's hands. Paige wasn't done with this conversation just yet though.

"I told you to trust us. Happy is a mechanical genius. She knows more about that C4 and its attributes than you will ever know in a life time of hands on experience. I'm pretty sure that between them all, they could easily make their own C4." She said firmly, though there was no ice in her tone any more, instead she felt like she was admonishing a reckless child. "Yours was just easier to get to and in case you hadn't noticed, we don't exactly have time to start a cooking class right now." She added. The Commander found he could not argue with that logic, so he just kept his mouth shut and watched like hawk.

"Going by the thickness of the glass and the compacted reinforcement pattern, I'd say you need an inch-thick ring around the base of the tank." Sylvester calculated as Happy rolled the putty into a rough inch thick rope before placing it in a precise, unending loop at base of the tank.

"Wait, why the base?" The Commander asked, "Surely the explosion would send the shards inside the tank. You'll shred her to pieces." He added worriedly.

"The water is at its densest at the bottom. Abigail will be shielded from the heat and pressure because of that. There's not much room for movement inside the tank either. Any shards will be forced outward due to the surface tension of the water being greater in the pressurised area." Happy lectured as she worked, and the Commander was again reminded of how insignificant his own brain was to the mission. He was only here because he had a license to carry a gun and get away with the consequences of using it with lethal force.

Paige watched, ignoring the stinging sensation on her cheek from the laser burn in her own exercise of Collins' plans for them all. She quickly pushed all her fears of what trap lay ahead with Amberle; the thought didn't bear thinking about.

And she daren't imagine Walter's predicament. If this first trap was as bad as this…

'Don't go there Dineen.' She told herself.

"Stand clear!" Happy called out and waited for everyone to get as far away as they could from the tank. Paige gave the woman a quick look of consolidated reassurance. Abigail gave her a quick nod, showing Paige she'd understood her concern and was more than ready to trust the team to free her. What other choice did she have at this point?

Paige took cover then too, and several seconds passed by. Then, for the second time in as many days, she was rocked by the sound of an explosive going off. The familiar sound of glass shattering was over run quickly by the sound of water flowing and a muted thump as Abigail fell from the tank to the floor. Toby was moving before the others had truly recognised it was safe to do so.

Paige looked up and saw that Abigail had landed in a heap on top of several shards of glass. Water ran, as Happy had predicted, to the middle of the room where the loose panel had been located. The sharp tang of ozone fizzed in the air as water met electric circuit boards. And there was a tang of something else too. The sharp metallic tang of copper stung her nose the closer she got to the downed woman and Toby. She saw it before she recognised what she was smelling. The smears of red swirling in the left-over water puddles could only be one thing.

Blood.

"She's bleeding from the left femoral artery. She needs surgery now!" Toby reported as two of the Homeland Security Agents moved in. Toby stood up as he continued his field report, his hands were still engulfed in plastic gloves which he was cleaning on a towel. "It's a small wound, but arterial bleeds can and will bleed out fast. Keep pressure on the gauze." He ordered in his 'doctor' voice which had a very different tone to his usual play of words. When in 'doctor mode,' Toby seemed to have this tone that one just didn't ignore or disobey. In that moment, he becomes a very reliable and trustworthy persona, as opposed to his carefree, prankster persona that he usually dons. It was always breathtaking to watch from a stand-by point of view. It was one of the things that just made Toby as remarkable as he was. Walter had chosen him well when he'd considered him for Scorpion. It was clear in moments like these, what Walter had seen in the man. In all of them really, Paige thought. They all had their defining qualities, but Toby's rarely came into play unless a medical emergency took priority.

As she watched the action play out, the two agents began to quickly unload something from one of their packs, and as they rolled out the large cloth material Paige could eventually see that it was a travel stretcher. One of the agents held the gauze Toby had placed into the wound while Happy moved forward to pick the locks on the cuffs and the other agent rapidly put the fold-away poles into place on the stretcher. Toby had already summed up the medical jargon to the Commander who was relaying to the radio. The agents would take Abigail to the Homeland base across the road to be relocated to a secure hospital where Florence would later meet with them after this rescue mission had been completed.

In an anticlimactic fashion, the ordeal that a few seconds ago had been severely overwhelming and almost impossible to overcome, was now just a woman being lifted on a stretcher to a medical team and a nonfunctional room with only a shattered tank and a few pink puddles to hint at what had happened. Paige shivered at the thought. It showed that whatever Collins threw at them would haunt them from inside their minds with very little left in the physical world to confirm and corroborate their memories of these events. If not for the glass and the puddles, it would have been as though nothing sinister had taken place here at all.

"So, what now?" The Commander asked as his two men carried Abigail out of the building for what was possibly the first time for her in months. Happy, Toby, Sylvester and the two remaining agents gathered to a new focal point in the room to discuss the next steps. Paige turned her attention away from the disappearing figure of the agents and Abigail, and faced the group stood just behind her.

"Now we find the others." She replied and gave her friends a quick once over to be sure they were all ok. They seemed tense but otherwise unhurt. The Homeland guys seemed ok too.

"And how do we do that?" One of the two remaining agents asked, clearly having seen enough to know who to trust to take the lead on this rescue mission.

"My team have the parameter surrounded. The building is a lot bigger than this room, how do we access the rest of the building without setting off other traps?" The Commander asked. His earlier misery with the C4 now down to just a simmering unease as he took in the effective result it had had in helping the civilian. The brains had said '_No matter how outlandish or risk worthy it sounds…_' he just hadn't been prepared for that level of audacity when dealing with them or that their crazy idea would work.

"Collins would want us to follow a set path. Every other entry point will be rigged with a trap that will take us away from the main goal here. Keep your men on standby, do not allow them to engage any possible entry points. We don't have time to focus on freeing them from anything Collins' traps them in." Toby replied as he cast his gaze around the empty room.

"There has to be a clue here somewhere, something not obvious but enough to keep us busy for a moment." Happy muttered out loud as she too searched for something 'off' within the room. Paige cast her own gaze around, unsure of what would constitute as suspicious but was sure she'd know it when she saw it. As one, the group started to spread out; eyes dancing over every speck of dust looking for the next step in Collins' plans for them.

It wasn't a comforting feeling and Paige felt herself grow cold at the thought of this taking too long. Walter was here; in this building; breathing the same air as she was…

She was so close… and still not close enough.

"Hey!" Sylvester's voice called out from next to the tank base. "I… I think I've got something…"

And never had those words felt like such an answered prayer.


	22. Ch21: The Goblin King Part 1

**Mind Games**

**Summary:** What do you get when you cross a depressed emotionally ill-equipped genius with a logical acidic solution?

**Disclaimer:** This is a fan-fiction story of the TV Series: Scorpion, and is in no way affiliated with the actual story/series in any of the aforementioned media. All characters and other materials related to the show that are used are not intended to infringe on any Copyrights. Elemental-Zer0 takes sole responsibility for any mistakes or offence that may be taken but truly not meant. However, any characters that are not related to any copyrights are copyrighted to Elemental-Zer0, as are any adaptions/variations to the plot set out in the original author's story/plot.

**Authors Note:** Chapter twenty-one… one trap down… two or a hundred to go! (Edit - Updated document with spelling corrections and complete sentences.)

No flames please. If you have any criticism to make please do it politely otherwise, I shall ignore your words. (It's happened before, I'm sorry to say, and I hadn't even posted any real chapters…)

* * *

**Chapter Twenty-One:** _**The Goblin King Part 1**_

It was a trap door, hidden underneath the base of the tank that Abigail had been trapped inside. The shards of the base had hidden the opening which, by Happy's reckoning, had been rigged to open with the lever but the wire that Paige had cut had probably broken a circuit somewhere in the design. Both Sylvester and Happy had assured Paige that there was no way of telling if that would happen so no one was to blame, but Paige still felt a little responsible for the issue. As she was sure Happy did too.

But, feelings aside, Happy managed to rip the door open with no obvious issues so the team prepared to enter the unlit space below.

It was dark but that soon changed when someone turned on their flashlight. Happy saw the problem immediately; some of the water from the explosion had shorted out the motion sensor that was supposed to tell the screen to turn on.

"That's what you get for being sloppy Collins." Happy bemoaned as she went to work on the wires behind the screen. The others waited (im)patiently while she rigged the trigger to manually turn on and after a few seconds, the screen blinked to life.

"Well, you managed to solve that one. Did poor Abigail live? Or did you watch her drown?" Collins voice taunted from the speakers. Though for some reason the video didn't quite sync up to the sound. It was like watching a bad lip-synced foreign movie. No one commented at the basic jeer, instead they just waited with gritted teeth for the video to get to the point.

"I wonder how you'll fare with this next one. I took inspiration from that wretched movie "Labyrinth" - where the Goblin King stole a baby and forced the heroine to undergo a maze of tests and challenges. Seems fitting no? Though, no doubt you've already met the father. I never trusted him to do his job. He'll learn the consequences the hard way I suppose. Let's see if you can solve this maze in time…" Collins voice said, and the screen flicked off just as the sound stopped. A chill of fear ran down Paige's spine for the doctor who'd risked everything to help them save Cabe from pursuers unknown yesterday afternoon. It sounded like Collins hadn't planned to let the doctor off so easily anyway. But Amberle was in a trap already and was serving to slow them down so the threat couldn't be aimed at her. It had to mean that Collins was planning to do something to the doctor himself...

"Commander, can you find a doctor at the hospital for me?" She asked just as Toby was about to open the door to the next challenge. The group looked to her with realisation slowly dawning upon their features.

"You think he's in trouble?" Happy asked and Paige nodded. She gave a nod back as she thought over the implications of that comment. Paige then turned back to the Commander with a sudden fear in her eyes.

"I need you to send some people to the Centipede head quarters too. If the doctor is being targeted, I can only imagine Florence is too." She said urgently, and while she wasn't particularly close with the chemist, her son was with her and if anything happened to him…

The Commander was speaking into his radio before she'd even finished speaking, but another voice rang out through their comms as he did.

"It's ok Ms Dineen. I've got your son and Miss Tipton covered here. And we've got a team heading to the hospital now." The voice was familiar and reassuring. It was Adriana Molina, the Director of Homeland Security, and she was babysitting her son. "You just focus on saving who you can." She added with a knowing tone to her voice.

"Thank you, Director." Paige breathed in relief and as she turned to the rest of the group, she found equally relieved expressions on their faces too. Toby gave her a nod, which she returned, before he opened the door to the next challenge. Inside was a short corridor that branched off in three separate directions. If Collins' inspiration had been the "Labyrinth" then it was safe to assume that this challenge was a maze and that there were traps inside for all of them.

"So, a maze." Happy summarised as they stared at the three opposing paths.

"With traps." Toby added, hesitant to move forward through the doorway.

"And an unknown time limit." Sylvester also added from the back of the group.

"No big deal, right?" Paige asked as they all stared into the maze from the door way. They stood like that for half a second, all contemplating the situation. "We should split up." Paige found herself saying. Six pairs of eyes stared at her in horror before she continued. "In teams." She clarified and Toby seemed to pick up on where she was going with this.

"Yes, three paths, three teams. We'll be able to find the right path quickly then. And we'll be able to support each other in any traps that pop up. We'll keep in communication all the time. When one of the teams finds the girl, we double back and follow their path." He said but Ralph's voice came to them over the comms with another idea.

"What if I fly Birdroni through the maze? We could scout the paths for dangers." He suggested and it was a good idea but Happy saw a flaw in it.

"We could but we don't know what time frame we are working with. It could take longer than we have to find the right path that way." She replied.

"Yeah, and we need your eyes up there so you can tell us if we're heading in the right direction. You'll be able to tell us who is close to the girl." Toby added, "Can you see any heat spots in the room before us?" he asked, hoping for at least a general direction to head in.

"I see a small heat source. Its coming from north west of your location. About four meters in and one meter from the back wall." Ralph replied helpfully and Sylvester did some quick calculations.

"If the room is only five meters by five, and we're quick to cover our paths, we shouldn't be more than four to five minutes from finding the target area. But any traps will slow us down. And we've no idea what's waiting for us when we do arrive. There could be a timer mechanism or something similar." He expressed his fears and the gravity of the situation weighed heavily upon their shoulders again.

As if having already beaten one of Collin's games wasn't exhausting enough, this second one seemed just as impossible, What with the time constraints now a complete mystery. They were working blind and the meant they had to take every precaution which would waste a lot of time too. Collins' goal to slow them down was working.

After having tested the walls to see if they could break through, the Commander finally ceded that they only way through was clearly to find their way through the maze. Happy managed to grumble out an 'I told you so...' after she'd initially declared the walls immovable and probably booby trapped if tampered with.

"So, we split up. I want one agent with every group that goes." The Commander stated and it was a good call. An agent in each group meant that anything physical could be covered by them and they'd be able to protect the 'brains' in the rescue operation. And a 'brain' in each group would be able to solve any traps or challenges they faced.

"Ok, Happy and Paige you're with The Commander," Toby said, sticking the females with the biggest man, made sense to him but Happy saw otherwise.

"Excuse me?" She said indignantly but Paige stopped her before she could protest any further. The glare that burned into her soul had Paige wondering if she'd just signed her own death sentence, but she stood by her point. They had no time for feelings in this situation. Time was slipping by and they had no idea how much Amberle had. Or how much Walter had for that matter too. She'd take Happy's glares over finding those two dead any time.

"I'll take Agent 1 here," Toby continued and slapped the nearest agent to him on the shoulder, "And Sly you get Agent 2 over there." Toby finished and gestured to the slightly smaller man next to Sylvester in the back of the group. "All Set?" He asked and when he was met with no objections, much to Happy's sour disgust, he clapped his hands together.

"Well alright then, lets move out!" He declared and turned to follow the path on the left. Paige watched as the two men disappeared out of view before following Happy's angry footsteps down the middle path, leaving Sylvester and the final agent to take the path on the right.

They had a four to five minute time frame for this challenge without traps and blockages. She could only guess at the what kind of traps they'd find, especially if Collins' aim was to delay them as much as possible.

She swallowed thickly.

This could get very complicated.


	23. Ch22: The Goblin King Part 2

**Mind Games**

**Summary:** What do you get when you cross a depressed emotionally ill-equipped genius with a logical acidic solution?

**Disclaimer:** This is a fan-fiction story of the TV Series: Scorpion, and is in no way affiliated with the actual story/series in any of the aforementioned media. All characters and other materials related to the show that are used are not intended to infringe on any Copyrights. Elemental-Zer0 takes sole responsibility for any mistakes or offence that may be taken but truly not meant. However, any characters that are not related to any copyrights are copyrighted to Elemental-Zer0, as are any adaptions/variations to the plot set out in the original author's story/plot.

**Authors Note: **Chapter twenty-two. So, I had to go back through my previous chapter and correct a few mistakes that manged to ninja their way past my editing hour. Hopefully this chapter is in better quality.

No flames please. If you have any criticism to make please do it _politely_ otherwise, I shall ignore your words. (It's happened before, I'm sorry to say, and I hadn't even posted any real chapters…)

* * *

_**Chapter Twenty-Two: **__**The Goblin King Part 2**_

It didn't take long for the first trap to come into play. And it was in Sylvester's path. He and the Agent he'd been paired with (who'd introduced himself as Agent Smyth with a 'y') had taken the final path, the one to the right but it had instantly turned right again and a short while later and turned right once more. Effectively they were now behind the trapdoor entry way they'd all climbed down into.

He'd warned Agent Smyth to be very careful and that anything could be a trigger for some sort of trap or attack mechanism. They'd both been on high alert with their senses triggered to maximum. Well, at least that's how Sylvester had felt. Agent Smyth didn't seem to be sweating as much as the mathematician or as jumpy either.

Perhaps that's why the Agent didn't see the pressure plate before it was too late.

Sylvester could only gape openly as the floor beneath Agent Smyth disappeared, taking the Agent with it. For a heart stopping moment, Sylvester thought he'd just witnessed a man's death but seconds later the Agent was swearing up a storm from somewhere below his field of vision. Sylvester immediately brought himself carefully to the edge of the pit… and almost fainted.

Agent Smyth had fallen into what quite probably was a garage pit for working on the underneath of cars when the warehouse had been a repair and storage shop. It was too deep to climb out though without the mandatory ladder that usually accompanied these types of pits. However, the pit had been gutted out; no ladder, no hydraulic lifts or tool hooks… nothing had been left behind. No doubt they'd all been taken to the garage's new premises. Nothing left but the pit itself… that was filled with snakes.

The fact that the pit was located in the basement was lost to Sylvester. But the reason of why they would put a basement pit in a warehouse was less of a concern at the moment. Sure, it didn't make sense unless there were subterranean structures underneath the warehouse too, or an old ramp that lead to the ground level which would ordinarily be used to get the vehicles down to the basement somewhere. But the pressing matter was the man trapped in said improbable pit with a load of angry snakes hissing up a storm.

Something in Sylvester's mind clearly raised a red flag about the whole thing but for the life of him he couldn't seem to grasp the information that should have followed.

"Would you quit muttering to yourself and help me outta here?" A disgruntled voice woke him from his reverie before Sylvester could dwell on the specifics any further. He glanced down again and felt sick for the poor Agent all over again. The Agent had landed on top of a ladder that had been locked to the floor with an industrial sized padlock. And of course, that was surrounded by the hundreds of snakes he'd registered on his first glance into the pointless pit. Though, as he looked closer he could see that on each snake, there was a key strapped to its tail. The probability of finding the correct key before one of the snakes bit the Agent was at least a hundred to one.

"Uh… ok… um… just hold still for a moment." He called down as he searched for a way to find the right key. There had to be a clue or a pattern to follow. This was Collins' work, so he'd be smart about this. He'd set up a way to get out of this just for the kicks of watching them struggle.

"Kinda have a thing about snakes, mate…" The agent replied with a thick Australian accent. "Sitting tight ain't sitting right with me right now." He said nervously. The paradox was not lost on Sylvester; an Australian would have bigger things to be worried about in his homeland so this had to be an irrational phobia. Which made things a little worse for the poor man stuck in the pit. However, Sylvester's thoughts were abruptly halted when he saw the Agent move to aim his gun at one of the snakes that had ventured too close.

"No! Don't shoot it!" Sylvester heard himself yelling. The Agent froze but didn't move the gun away from the scaled creature.

"Why the hell not?!" Agent Smyth asked, his voice tight with fear.

"Because the noise will startle all the other snakes, and as they are already agitated, they will attack whatever is nearest to them." Sylvester explained as he crouched down to view the scene closer. "Currently, that's you." He added quickly. "And we have no idea if there are any poisonous ones in there. If you're bitten, I can't reach you to get you out or give you any antivenom." He continued as he studied the pit. To his relief, the Agent gave a frustrated sigh and holstered his gun for the time being.

"I hear what you're saying man, but I really need you to hurry up and get me the hell outta here." Agent Smyth pleaded as he pulled himself slowly to a clear corner of the pit away from the snakes. For an Agent who'd clearly been trained in all areas of combat and espionage, the irrational phobia of snakes seemed a little out of place. Sylvester frowned but saved that nugget of information for a later moment. Right now, he had to find the answer to this seemingly impossible situation.

"I know." Sylvester said softly. "I'm working on it. Just try not to make any sudden movements and try to keep calm." He added before activating his comm link to the others on his team. "Guys, we found our first trap." He reported.

"Are you ok?" Paige asked, the concern in her voice was touching. Clearly she'd imagined he was trapped in some horrific nightmare and the sentiment of her worry was a little heart-warming but in the grand scope of things he had to ignore it for now. Shame that it was.

"Do you need medical help?" Toby's question was more practical but Sylvester knew there was a level of concern in there too.

"I'm ok. But Agent Smyth fell into a pit of snakes. There's a ladder locked to pull-ring at the bottom of the pit, but there's hundreds of keys which are strapped to just as many snakes." He explained and waited for their comments. The harsh intake of air he heard over the comms he could tell had come from Paige but the person who spoke was Toby.

"Has he been bitten by any of them?" He asked, and it was a good question. Sylvester hadn't thought to ask because the man had seemed fine, just scared.

"I don't think so, but I'll get him to check, gimme a sec." He said to the comms before turning to Agent Smyth below him. "Agent Smyth, my doctor friend needs to know if you've been bitten by any of the snakes?" He called down. "Did you land on one when you fell?" He added when the Agent shuffled to a standing position. He watched as the man checked himself but came up with no bite wounds.

"I'm clean. No bites." The man said, then added a macabre "…yet." to the end of his statement. Sylvester could sympathise but didn't have time.

"No bites Toby. But there's no clues either. I don't know how to solve this one." He reported back, his own concern rising.

"Ok, calm down. We'll figure this out." Toby replied, his tone was placating, and Sylvester appreciated the effort to calm him down, but the problem was still a messy one. He'd always had issues with his fear and being unable to control it like the others could. "Can you see what kinds of snakes there are?" Toby asked and Sylvester felt a little calmer now that he had a task to do. He peered into the pit to see what variety there were but as he kept looking.

"It's a big mess in there Toby, so many different colours and sizes. I can't tell how many different species are down there or whether they are poisonous or not." Sylvester replied anxiously, his eyes still tracking the snakes as they slithered and hissed.

"Wait a minute." Happy's voice echoed through the comms. "What if this is related to us in some way?" She asked and Sylvester was lost as to what she was getting at.

"What do you mean Happy?" Paige asked, clearly also in the dark.

"Think about it." Happy began, "The first trap was aimed at Paige. Collins knew she was a cheerleader in the past, and she and Flo had reasons to be enemies, so saving Flo's sister was like a 'come at me' deal." Happy explained, reminding them of what had taken place on the floor above them only minutes before. "So, this snake pit must have a theme to do with us too." She said and it made sense. It fit Collins' profile but the question now was; who was the pit of snakes aimed at? And why?

"So, which one of us has a history with snakes that Collins would know about?" Paige asked, and the comms fell silent. Then an idea surprised Sylvester as it occurred to him.

"Didn't we solve a snake bite case a few years ago when we first started out?" He asked, a little unsure of his own query.

"The Belarus and Latvian treaty. Yes, President Kreshenko was poisoned with snake venom!" Toby replied; his voice had grown excited. "Sly, can you see any adders in the pit?" He asked, and Sylvester suddenly caught on to where Toby was going with this idea. Kreshenko, and eventually Walter too, had been poisoned with adder venom that day and it would be something Collins would have investigated into if it had anything to do with Walter almost dying. The man had a strange obsession with their former boss, so much so that it really creeped Sylvester out. He didn't know how Walter could cope with someone like that hovering in the background of his life.

He shook himself out of the thought and quickly focused on the snakes in the pit. There were so many of them, but one thing stood out to Sylvester's pattern seeking brain that no one else may have noticed. No two snake was the same species. At first, Sylvester was floored at how Collins had managed to get so many snakes and not have a single one be the same species as another. But that also meant that if there was an adder in the pit, it would be the only one. And thus, if Happy and Toby were right, it would have the key that would release the ladder so the Agent could climb out.

"I see one!" He called back and quickly addressed the Agent ins distress. "Ok Agent Smyth, do you see the light tan snake with the dark zigzag pattern on its back over there? On your right, next to the yellow and green one." Sylvester directed and the Agent nodded. "That one should have the key on it to release the ladder so you can climb out." He quickly explained but the Agent just stared at the snake and didn't move.

"I need to catch the rotten thing, don't I?" The man said with a heavy amount of deflation in his tone. "It just had to be snakes…" The man muttered before a new voice over the comms entered Sylvester's ear.

"Mr Dodd, its Commander White." The Commanders voice had made him jump. Sylvester hadn't been expecting the man to have access to their comm frequency. "I borrowed your comm piece from Ms Dineen. She's been keeping me informed of the situation." The Commander explained, letting Sylvester know how he'd gotten into his ear. "I need you to pass a message on to John for me." The Commander asked and Sylvester felt himself frown at the name. Seriously? The mans name was John Smyth? How original.

"Uh sure." He replied, what choice did he have exactly?

"Can you tell him this: Osaka, Japan. March 14th, 2009." The Commander said, "He'll know what it means." The message was extremely cryptic, and no doubt had some need to know information attached to it somehow which was probably why the Commander didn't out right say what he wanted to convey.

"Hey uh Mr Agent. Your Commander wants to tell you Osaka, Japan, 14th March 2009. Said you'd know what it means." Sylvester recited to the man in the pit. The change of posture was startling, and Sylvester had to blink a few times to believe what he was witnessing.

"Tell him 'thanks,' and that its all under control now." Agent John Smyth replied. His voice was strong and calm, a complete opposite to the man that had been shaking like a leaf only seconds ago.

"Wow…" Was all the mathematician could say before the Commander was speaking again.

"I heard him. I'm passing the comms piece back to Ms Dineen." He said and the sound of a shuffling noise against the microphone gave Sylvester the hint that the comms piece was being passed back to Paige.

"Sly, what's going?" Paige's voice asked, and Sylvester breathed a little in relief. Having the intimidating voice of the Commander in his ear had unnerved him more than it normally would have. And he wasn't sure why that was the case. Maybe it was just the adrenaline getting to him.

"Its going ok Paige. He's up and approaching the adder as we speak." Sylvester reported as he watched the man crouch down in the nest of snakes as he carefully moved other snakes out of the way. A few seconds later, Agent John Smyth held the only adder up with a firm grip behind its head. The key slid off the tail easily and the Agent gently tossed the snake away from him and the ladder. It hissed but otherwise remained where it landed.

Next, Sylvester watched as the man gently moved a bundle of snakes away from the padlock before trying the key in the lock. A small click told them that it had been the right key and the ladder came loose without further fuss. The ladder was propped up against the side of the pit and the Agent began to climb out. It was all going so smoothly that Sylvester could hardly believe it was happening. But that was when their luck ran out. Just as the John Smyth reached the top of the ladder with his hands, an agonising pinch on his right ankle had him crying out in pain and were it not for Sylvester's quick grab of the mans wrists, the Agent would have fallen back into the pit.

"Come on John, climb out! I can't pull you up. You have to climb!" He gritted out as he struggled to keep the man on the ladder.

"What's happening Sly?" Paige's voice asked but Sylvester didn't have enough breath in him to reply at that moment. He felt the man shift beneath his grip and slowly, between Sylvester's tugging and urging, and John's stubborn determination, they managed to get the man out of the pit. Sylvester heaved as the man laid on the floor beside him, but he knew that if the man had been bitten that there was no time to waste.

"Uh Toby, I need your help." He said into the comms as he stared at the angry red twin puncture marks on the man's exposed ankle. The reaction was fast acting, and the man was already sweating and looking pale and green.

"What happened?" Toby's voice asked through the comms.

"He was bitten, right at the last minute." Sylvester explained, dread creeping up his throat as he watched the angry red bites swell before his very eyes. "And its spreading fast."

If they didn't get an antivenom into the guy in the next few minutes, he was going to die.

"I'm on my way." Toby said, his voice hitching as he broke into a run.


	24. Ch23: The Goblin King Part 3

**Mind Games**

**Summary:** What do you get when you cross a depressed emotionally ill-equipped genius with a logical acidic solution?

**Disclaimer:** This is a fan-fiction story of the TV Series: Scorpion, and is in no way affiliated with the actual story/series in any of the aforementioned media. All characters and other materials related to the show that are used are not intended to infringe on any Copyrights. Elemental-Zer0 takes sole responsibility for any mistakes or offence that may be taken but truly not meant. However, any characters that are not related to any copyrights are copyrighted to Elemental-Zer0, as are any adaptions/variations to the plot set out in the original author's story/plot.

**Authors Note: **Chapter twenty-three... bit of a longer chapter for you today. Next one is a little shorter but full of intense action!

No flames please. If you have any criticism to make please do it _politely_ otherwise, I shall ignore your words. (It's happened before, I'm sorry to say, and I hadn't even posted any real chapters…)

* * *

_**Chapter Twenty-Three: **__**The Goblin King Part 3**_

"Which way did you turn after you followed your path?" Toby asked through the comms. His breath was heavy in the mic as he ran.

"Uh… we didn't. We just followed the path. There were no other openings." Sylvester replied as he worked to remove his belt. A tourniquet was most likely the only thing that might save this man right now. He worked fast, fingers fumbling over the belt catch before he loosened it enough to free it from his waist band. He wrapped it around the man's upper calf and pulled it tight to stem the flow of the venom as it spread further up the man's ankle. The swelling had already reached the lower half of the calf.

It had only been a split second, but Sylvester had definitely witnessed which snake had struck the Agent. If he hadn't the situation would be a lot worse; for instance, if they administered the general antivenom and it was a rare venom type, it could have serious side effects that could do more damage than good. It had been like in the movies when the action scene slowed down in playback. The kids these days called it slow motion but Sylvester didn't have time to worry about colloquialisms or adolescent slang terms.

The snake that had bitten Agent Smyth was a _black mamba_; native to Africa mostly unless in a reptile zoo or kept as a private pet. Usually, domesticated ones were 'de-fanged' – which mostly meant that the venom glands were removed rather than the actual 'fangs' they used to inject the venom with. In recent years this had become the more humane and acceptable way to _de-venom-ize_ a domestic poisonous snake rather than its original method of actually removing the fangs themselves. This meant that they weren't supposed to be a threat venom-wise but could still feed and hunt in controlled environments. However, the bite alone of a black mamba would still be very powerful and thus also very painful, _and _subject to various infections or bacteria that the snake may have in its saliva.

A black mambas bite could also _easily_ rip through reinforced fabric with its strike and bite force and if this one still had its venom-glands, it was a guaranteed death within seven to fifteen hours of the initial bite unless the antivenom was used, with first severe symptoms showing up around ten minutes after the initial bite. The black mamba's venom was one of those that would not react well with a general antivenom either, which meant that if the black mamba that had bitten Agent Smyth was venomous, he'd need the specialised antivenom which wasn't an off-the-shelf kind of deal at the local pharmacy.

Sylvester studied the wound looking for signs of a poisonous reaction. As he'd suspected; it had gone straight through the reinforced fabric of the Agent's trousers_ and_ his thick sock, missing the top of the combat boots by a fraction. His mind whirled into action as he rapidly worked through his mental encyclopaedia of the symptoms the black mamba's venom could produce.

The venom of a black mamba was predominantly neurotoxic, affecting the synapses in the brain primarily. Which meant that swelling wasn't a normal reaction to the venom. And Agent Smyth's ankle was now three times its normal size. This was not a normal reaction. This was something Sylvester wasn't equipped to handle.

His analysis of the situation had taken less than a minute to observe, and it was high time he reported to Toby his initial findings so the doctor could postulate theories of how to help his patient before he arrived at the scene.

"Toby, I think there's something really wrong with this bite." He reported into the comms. Toby's response was immediate.

"Tell me facts, Sly." His voice was tight and his breathing still heavy.

"It was a black mamba that bit him; I saw it plain as day. But the symptoms aren't matching up to a typical black mamba bite. The venom doesn't induce swelling but Agent Smyth's ankle is the size of a football right now!" He recited with a slight edge of panic to his voice. "And his breathing is becoming very laboured too. Also, not a typical response to this venom." He added, knowing that every detail was likely vital no matter how small it was.

"Could be an allergic reaction to the venom itself." Toby theorised out loud as he ran. "I'll know when I see it for myself. We've just passed the main entrance now. I'm almost with you." The doctor added and sure enough, it didn't take Toby long to find them.

Toby fell to his knees next to his newest patient and had to pause a little at the sight of the man's ankle. "Sly you weren't playing about, this is huge." He muttered as he took in the size of the swelling around the bite wound. Sylvester clearly hadn't been exaggerating. Toby shook himself free of the shock and quickly checked the man's airways. Sure enough, the throat was swelling too. Other signs also pointed to one conclusion:

"He's suffering from the venom poisoning _and _anaphylactic shock." He stated more for the sake of the agent he'd claimed and dubbed as 'Agent 1' who was giving the Commander updates. Toby professionally managed to ignore the agent as he parroted away behind him, while he dug into his med-bag for an epi-pen. He didn't bother looking through his antivenoms, he knew he didn't have the right one for a black mamba bite but he had told his agent shadow to radio Homeland's HQ across the road to get one ready upon arrival. He readied two epi-pens just in case and with practised swift movements, pulled the waist band of the downed agent's trousers down to administer the medication. The trousers were reinforced after all, and although a black mamba could pierce the fabric, the flimsy needle was more likely to snap off the epi-pen injection unit and render itself useless. The trousers were tight to shift and the makeshift tourniquet from Sylvester's belt also hindered his ability to stick the epi-pen into the man's thigh but he managed through sheer determination. He had a doctorate in that area too… or at least that's how it seemed.

Seconds passed by with no change, and Toby fingered the second epi-pen as the time for drug-response rapidly dwindled. But then the patient took a deeper breath, quickly followed by another, easier breath. Toby put the other epi-pen away without preamble and quickly brought out a bottle of antibacterial mouthwash. He manoeuvred himself to sit next to the ankle and managed to remove the boot and sock in record timing. The angry twin welts oozed at him and Toby fought his gag reflex as he took a swig of the mouthwash and took out a sealed scalpel to fully reopen the puncture wounds.

In a movement that made both Sylvester and the other agent almost vomit – _though the agent hid it well beneath a stoic façade_ – Toby pressed his lips against the wound and sucked for all it was worth without allowing himself to swallow. When he couldn't keep the vacuum pressure up any more, he spat the contents of his mouth to the side, uncaring of where it landed as long as it wasn't on anyone present, and took another swig of mouthwash before repeating the action several times.

It was very amateur and unsophisticated compared to modern treatments but it was a technique that had saved lives countless times before. The mouthwash worked to protect Toby from falling victim to the poison while also providing a base fluid to spit the poison out with. Any residual mouthwash around the area of the wound would fight off any infection too and prevent any bacteria that may or may not be present in Toby's mouth from infecting the open wound too. And the sucking reduced the amount of venom in the man's leg.

The anaphylactic swelling had helped too. When an area of the body swells due to anaphylaxis, it's the blood vessels that create the outcome. The arteries that lead to the area dilate to their fullest, as do the capillary vessels, allowing for as much blood to build up in the area to fight off any infection. At the same time the veins constrict to restrict the amount of contagions that might succeed in getting past that first defence.

In essence, it had localised the venom when the blood vessels had constricted, leaving most of the venom in the wound itself rather than allowing it to flow freely through the blood vessels. When the epi-pen had started doing its job, that's when Toby had to move fast or the swelling in the ankle would reduce and release the toxins very quickly. Sylvester's tourniquet had been a major help though by ensuring that whatever toxins managed to slip past the swelling stayed within the leg, and _that_ allowed the epi-pen to have enough time to work on the man's airways first without allowing the ankle swelling to reduce by too much.

The whole affair wasn't pleasant but it had been as good a procedure as it would ever be considering the circumstances.

"Ok, we need to get him to the entrance of the maze. Hopefully some of your guys will already be there and take over." Toby said after spiting out the last mouthful of mouthwash and venom while tying a makeshift poultice to the wound. "I'm going to release the tourniquet a little now. You'll need to release it in small increments or he'll lose his leg." He ordered to the other agent who nodded and set to work getting the downed agent to his feet… or rather to his good foot. Toby shoved himself underneath the patient's other shoulder and with Sylvester bringing up the rear, they moved backwards through the maze to the entrance. The walk was slow but the path was short.

But despite the whole ordeal, Toby was optimistic about the man's survival.

* * *

Paige was worried but found it fairly easy to ignore the chatter in her ear as Toby and Sylvester worked to help the agent that had been bitten. As long as her team were ok, that was all that mattered to her. Of course, she didn't want the agent to suffer, but he was a stranger to her and he signed on to this job knowing the risks. She'd of course been keeping the Commander up to date, who had relayed orders back to their HQ across the road. A team would come to extract the fallen agent and a few more would replace him.

Paige and her companions however had their own issues to deal with. Before them, they could clearly see a door. And through the door's window; they could make out a small suspended cage with little Amberle sleeping in the middle of it. There was another TV screen on the wall by the door too, which meant that there was some other horrific consequence of opening the door. They needed to be at full genius capacity before they get to that door.

However, there was a slight issue before they could approach the door. Between them and the door was a full grid of interactive floor tiles. Each tile had a number in a random pattern and when Happy tossed an old screwdriver from her pack onto one of the tiles, a dart shot from the wall and landed on the tile releasing a plume of strange smelling gas. Needless to say, Paige did not want to find out what that gas could have done to a human had it managed to hit one of them. Furthermore, there seemed to be no apparent clue as to what they referenced.

Happy was stumped for now, and Paige and the Commander had no hope if a genius couldn't figure it out.

For now, they couldn't advance until Toby and Sylvester could rejoin them.

"How's it going, Toby?" Paige asked through the comms as the chatter seemed to have died down a little.

"He's stable and on his way to the med facility. They've got the antivenom waiting for him. If they get him there in time, he'll be fine." Toby replied, his voice sounded breathless and exhausted.

"Ok, I know you've just been through a lot but I need you to come find us as soon as you can." Paige asked, her eyes were locked onto the form of the toddler she could see through the door window and her heart gave a pang of mother instinct as the girl seemed to stir in her sleep.

"What happened? Is Happy ok? Are you hurt?" Toby's response was panicked and quick and Paige only just realised how her comment could have been interpreted.

"No, we're fine." She was quick to reassure. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. It's just, we have eyes on Amberle but we have a big problem getting to her." She added by way of an update. She heard Toby give a few deep breaths over the comms, no doubt trying to stymy his panic and catch his breath after the sprint through the maze and the action of the rescue.

"Ok," he said after a moment. "We're on our way. Can you direct us to your location?" He asked and Paige's heart went out to the guy.

"I can do one better; I'll backtrack our steps and meet you at the entrance. You catch your breath until then." Paige said as she turned to Happy who nodded her agreement. Paige quickly turned on her heel and headed back the way they'd come, leaving Happy to explain to the commander where she was going.

"Ok. See you in a bit."


	25. Ch24: The Goblin King Part 4

**Mind Games**

**Summary:** What do you get when you cross a depressed emotionally ill-equipped genius with a logical acidic solution?

**Disclaimer:** This is a fan-fiction story of the TV Series: Scorpion, and is in no way affiliated with the actual story/series in any of the aforementioned media. All characters and other materials related to the show that are used are not intended to infringe on any Copyrights. Elemental-Zer0 takes sole responsibility for any mistakes or offence that may be taken but truly not meant. However, any characters that are not related to any copyrights are copyrighted to Elemental-Zer0, as are any adaptions/variations to the plot set out in the original author's story/plot.

**Authors Note: **Chapter twenty-four. Who's still reading? Have I killed you all off with heart-attacks yet? If I haven't, this chapter might finish you off...

No flames please. If you have any criticism to make please do it _politely_ otherwise, I shall ignore your words. (It's happened before, I'm sorry to say, and I hadn't even posted any real chapters…)

* * *

_**Chapter Twenty-four: **__**The Goblin King Part 4**_

The orders were clear and precise.

Just the way he liked them. No fuss, no messy complications. That's why he was in the business he was in. Nothing was simpler to him than a single target and a payment at the end of the job done. Half up front of course. It was no use doing the job and getting nothing if the client decided to pull out of the deal after the deed was done.

But, with his current client, things that should have been simple had turned out to be not so simple after all. His target, an African American doctor in a suburban hospital had been pretty difficult to track down after he'd lost sight of him in an elevator rush. And then to top things off, the 'men-in-black,' a moniker his colleagues had dubbed for the authorities that were a little stronger in force than the local police, had shown up looking for his target too. He wasn't sure who they were; CIA, MOD, FBI or what, but he knew he'd be hard pressed to carry out his agenda if they got to the doctor first.

He loved simple.

But he loved a challenge more.

Staying low on the radar, using his borrowed scrubs and face mask, he meandered through the halls where his target had been last seen. He kept his eyes on the men-in-black over the flip chart he'd procured from a stray patient's bed as they passed him after being directed a certain way down a hall. His ears worked hard as he picked out some chatter from them as they passed.

He heard the word pediatrics ward and was moving before anyone could recognise him. He'd studied the hospital for weeks, knowing the call would come in soon so he already knew a short cut to the mentioned ward.

He ghosted through a 'staff only' corridor, and down a set of steps befor emerging out into the cafeteria area. From here, he quickly passed unhindered through the kitchen hallway and found himself in another corridor that led to the pediatrics ward.

The sound of children's voices gave him no cause to pause. He'd done his job in front of countless children before and wasn't afraid to do it again.

He peered into the ward and spotted his target, he was stood at the end of a child's bed flipping through the chart, making more sense of the scratchy handwriting than was possible for the average human. He watched the target for a few minutes more, hiding his scrutiny behind a fake fixation on a post-it board of events where families with ill children could find counselling or a safe event to venture to, to hide from the monotonous life of hospital food and needles.

The target shifted his feet. That was the signal he needed to start moving. He walked toward the doctor, nose in a leaflet, eyes on his prize. The target turned to him, a smile on his face as he bid farewell to his young patient and her parents. The target stepped toward him, he prepared his weapon. A syringe with a deadly concoction of poisons. The reaction would be fast but slow enough to give him time to escape.

They were inches apart.

He barged into the target, making it look totally accidental. They toppled to the floor, just as he planned it. And as they hit the floor, he shipped the needle out and plunged the poison into the target's abdomen. In the tumble, the target didn't even feel it.

Several flailing limbs and apologies later he was walking out of a side door in his usual attire after having dumped the scrubs down a wash chute seconds beforehand. He ignored the cries of shock and terror in his wake as he let the door close behind him. He was already moving on to his next target, wondering all the way there, just what a centipede partnership could possibly be in the business of…

* * *

It took less time to back track than it had to move forward, which was probably because they'd taken every precaution when moving forward in case of traps. Knowing the path was clear, it was easier to move quickly and meet with Toby, Sylvester and their new entourage of agents at the maze entrance.

"Hey." She greeted as she emerged from the middle pathway and laid eyes on the group for the first time in what felt like a few hours but had really only been a few minutes. It was hard to keep track of time when so much was going on.

"Hey." Sylvester replied, adrenalin no doubt still giving him the jitters after all the excitement he'd just been through. Toby gave her a sweeping look, assessing her well being as though he didn't trust the Commander to keep her safe. His visual assessment complete, he nodded at her in greeting.

"How's the cheek?" He asked, apparently unable to switch his doctor mode off for the moment. Paige gave a half shoulder shrug as she approached the two men and their mini regiment.

"I'll live." She replied, "You?" She asked, piling so many more questions into that one query and she knew he'd catch all of them too. He just gave a tired nod and moved to stand up form his previously seated position. It was time to get to work.

Paige led them all down the narrow pathway she'd backtracked along to find them, all the while describing what they'd found and their current theories as to its purpose and how to solve it. Toby scrubbed at his face in a weary manner while he listened, while Sylvester seemed to be hurriedly going through mental encyclopedias that matched any data that she'd been able to share.

When Toby and Sylvester finally saw what had stumped them, they could understand why. The grid was four tiles wide by eighteen tiles long and had the numbers facing them starting with nineteen, thirty-seven, fifty-five, eighty-seven along the front four tiles then along the second row started at twenty, thirty-eight, fifty-six and eighty-eight. The pattern continued down to the end of the grid. It was clear to see that the tiles were lined to run numerically length ways, but it was unclear what the numbers represented. Clearly, they had to figure out a sequence with which to cross the grid safely but with no reference to abide by it was almost impossible to figure out.

And to top it off, if they got one wrong, the consequences were a dart filled with an unknown substance shot at high speed at the wrongly pressed tile.

"What on earth does this mean?" Toby grimaced as he wracked his brain for the answer. "Walter would have figured this out by now. If he can figure it out, so can we." Happy commented, no doubt vying for an inspiration quote but the growl in her voice gave a different perception entirely. Not that anyone was willing to point that out to her mind.

"Yes, but Walter had the highest IQ of all of us and he's better at thinking on his feet than we are." Sylvester commented, his own frustration clearly affecting his will to live if the glare he received from Happy was anything to judge by.

"You're right, we really need Walter for this." Toby replied as he stared at the meaningless tiles before them.

"Walter's not here right now Toby, he's who we're trying to rescue remember?" Sylvester argued but Toby ignored the stress induced frustration in his friend's voice as an idea struck him. For several years now there was one other person on their team who was just as smart, if not smarter than their missing boss.

"No, but Ralph is here. And he's just as smart." Toby replied; the spark was back in his eyes. "Ralph?" he called into the comms as he approached the edge of the table of tiles on the floor. "Can you hear me buddy?" He asked. He was positive the kid was already investigating something to help them.

"I'm here," Ralph's young voice echoed through the comms link.

"Ok, I need you to find out anything you can about a four-box tall by eighteen-box wide grid with the numbers running from nineteen to a hundred-and-eighteen lengthways, and starting from the top left." Toby asked and then all those in the maze collectively held their breath. The soft tapping of keys whispered in their ears like soothing promise of answers to come but gifting no promises yet.

The silence and the tension were palpable.

But the next sound to come over the comms wasn't the reassuring sound of Ralph with an answer. There was a scuffling sound, then the sound of rapid footsteps and an ear-splitting sound of a window shattering with a great amount of force. The next words sent chills through all who were present in the maze.

"Intruder! Get down!"

Bang!


	26. Ch25: The Goblin King Part 5

**Mind Games**

**Summary:** What do you get when you cross a depressed emotionally ill-equipped genius with a logical acidic solution?

**Disclaimer:** This is a fan-fiction story of the TV Series: Scorpion, and is in no way affiliated with the actual story/series in any of the aforementioned media. All characters and other materials related to the show that are used are not intended to infringe on any Copyrights. Elemental-Zer0 takes sole responsibility for any mistakes or offence that may be taken but truly not meant. However, any characters that are not related to any copyrights are copyrighted to Elemental-Zer0, as are any adaptions/variations to the plot set out in the original author's story/plot.

**Authors Note: **Chapter twenty-five. Ok, my apologies for the heart stopping cliff hanger last chapter.

No flames please. If you have any criticism to make please do it _politely_ otherwise, I shall ignore your words. (It's happened before, I'm sorry to say, and I hadn't even posted any real chapters…)

* * *

_**Chapter Twenty-five: **__**The Goblin King Part 5**_

"Ralph?!" Paige's cry of alarm and fear pulled at all three geniuses heart-strings. The colour drained from the young mother's face and Toby clocked the exact moment she was at risk of fainting. He moved and caught her before settling her down to the ground.

Happy was shouting into the comms behind him but his focus was on Paige who had gone deathly quiet and white. Shock was a killer if untreated properly and Paige had just entered stage one neurogenic shock. Her skin and turned clammy, her pulse was weakening and rapidly beating faster, and the weakness in her body and ability to support herself was also a telling symptom.

But she was not completely gone yet.

"Paige? Hey Paige, come on. Come back to us Paige." Toby called as he gently tapped her cheek. She stirred but the fear in her eyes told him how close she was to losing it again. "Shh, its ok. The Director of Homeland is there, remember? She won't let anything happen to Ralph." He coaxed her into a sitting position and tried to get through to her again. "Come on, Ralph's a clever boy. He's not about to let anything get in the way of us bringing Walter home ok." He tried again to soothe the clearly stricken woman.

"Mom?" The boy's sudden voice in their ears was like a miracle cure. Paige's head shot up and her eyes were wide, but she was cognizant again. Albeit a little frantic.

"Ralph!" She cried. "Oh, baby are you ok?! Are you hurt?! What happened?! Are you safe?!" Her rapid-fire questions were too fast, but Ralph understood what his mom needed to hear.

"I'm ok mom. I'm not hurt and there's no more danger." Ralph confirmed in a solid tone. No doubt being coached by the Head of Homeland in how to calm his mother down. "There was an intruder, but the homeland guys got him first. I don't think he realised just how many bodyguards the Head of Homeland brought with her." His voice had an upbeat ring to it suggesting that he'd actually rather enjoyed the entertainment after the initial shock had worn off. Toby hid his smile; the boy was a dead ringer for a younger Walter that it really begged the question as to whether Walter hadn't really sired the little genius.

"Are you sure you're ok baby?" Paige asked again, not willing to believe it until she ascertained for herself, which was natural for any loving mother. "Do you need me to come home?" She asked, clearly wanting nothing more than to run to him and hold him tightly and likely never let go again.

"I'm ok mom. I'm in the safest place for me right now. And I have something to help you with your maze trap too." Ralph added and Toby swore it again; Walter was definitely in the boy's genes somehow. The way he'd deflected his mother's concerns with an answer to their issue was pure Walter behaviour if ever he'd seen it.

"We think the grid is a section of the periodic table." Florence's voice added to the conversation, though her voice seemed extremely shaken.

"Flo, are you ok?" Sylvester asked quickly, catching the emotion in his crush's tone.

"I'm ok." She replied without elaborating, but Ralph saved them the heartache of worrying about it.

"The intruder was here for her." Ralph said and that's when the Director stepped in on the call.

"I can assure you everything is under control here." She said with a confidence that helped the team relax a little. "We believe the intruder was sent by Mr. Collins as a test more than anything else and we don't expect another attempt will be made but have taken precautions for the foreseeable future regardless. While the threat was legitimate," she explained and Paige paled again at her comment, "it has been successfully, and _severely_, neutralised." She added and Paige relaxed a little again. The Directors tone when she'd said the word 'severely' conveyed a hidden story that they were all curious to hear but their focus was brought back to the current issue they all faced.

The grid.

"Flo, can you repeat what you said about the grid?" Happy asked, determining that now was as good a moment to ask the question and refocus their efforts.

"Yes, of course. And I'm fine Sylvester; just a little shaken but I'll live." Florence replied and then took a deep breath to continue explaining what they'd found. "We used a software that Walter had been helping Ralph with to find loose parameter results." She began and Ralph chimed in then for his mother's sake.

"That's geek-speak for searching for things that we don't have all the details for, Mom." Colour pinked at Paige's cheeks, finally, and Toby felt it was a welcome sight considering how pale she looked after that initial scare.

"Thank you, sweetie." She mumbled quietly.

"When we did that, it showed various results but the one that stood out the most was the periodic table. Specifically, the main grid beginning with the metals." Florence finished. And she'd recognise the periodic table better than any of them seeing as her area of expertise required her to know the table inside and out in order to do her job.

And Sylvester swore to himself. Of course, it was the periodic table. Why hadn't he seen that? He suddenly felt jittery at the thought. His hands felt unusually clammy and cold, and he was sweating despite the amicable temperature. His chest felt both tight and loose at the same time and his head felt funny. It occurred to him that this was not normal behaviour for him, or any of them for that matter. The team was usually much calmer than they were currently acting. Was it because it was Walter? Was it because it was Collins who had him?

No, it couldn't be. Walter had been in perilous situations like this before and they'd all managed to keep calm. And Collins had been in and out of their lives for a long time, so they were used to his plots and games.

So, something external was affecting their ability to think calmly.

"Guys, I think there's something in the air in here that's making us a little crazy." He spoke up and all eyes were on him for a moment. "I'm feeling very panicky, more so than I usually do in these scenarios, even with one of our own in trouble. Is anyone else feeling clammy, cold and tight chested?" He asked, hoping he wasn't going crazy.

"Yeah, a bit." Happy admitted, visibly panting a little until she forced herself to control her breathing.

"I felt energised when I was running to you Sylvester but when I got to the entrance, I felt exhausted. I thought it was just because I'd I ran all the way but I'm feeling energised again, like…" Toby said but stopped for lack of a good term to use.

"…Like I have too much energy and I don't know what to do with it." Paige finished for him, also feeling the same way as the others.

"It's the oxygen levels. They're higher in this room than our bodies are used to." The Commander spoke and everyone turned to him in surprise. An explanation was clearly needed. "In training, we use higher levels of O2 to enhance performance to get the best out of the exercises. In the field, its sometimes used to make us a little loopy. It's a tactic used in warfare to put the enemy off guard." He explained and Toby nodded.

"Yes, I think that's it. We're being dosed with higher levels of oxygen." He confirmed as he sought through his head on ways to combat the symptoms. "Ok, take measured breaths. Deep but slow. Don't shallow breathe. Use a handkerchief or a thin material to cover your mouth and nose, this should limit the intake of air. And Where possible, use as much energy as you can to burn off the O2 in your blood already. Hop or jump on the spot and so on." He listed and they all began to hop and jump as instructed.

"Ok," Sylvester said as he hopped from one foot to the other and breathed through his sweater top. "This would explain why I didn't make the periodic table connection." He said, feeling a little better about his mistake.

"Most likely." Toby replied as he too made small jumps on the spot.

"So," Sylvester continued, bring the topic back to the table before them, "If we use the assumption that every tile is going to shoot something at us, we should choose a path using the least toxic element tiles." He analysed, and then paled. "How many times can a tile shoot at you do you reckon?" He asked. Wondering if they'd all be shot or if they could send someone across to collect the darts and then follow that path with no trouble.

Paige had to admit, after the laser matrix, she wasn't keen in adding holes to her list of injuries due to this convoluted rescue mission.

Walter had better appreciate the efforts they were all going to, to rescue his ass.

A pang of longing hit her then and she immediately retracted the thought. If the suicide note was anything to go by, she was sure he'd be grateful they even remembered him, let alone went to all these lengths to rescue him. So no, that thought wasn't fair to him.

Sylvester's question however seemed to light up an idea in her head.

"Happy, which tile did you hit earlier? Maybe we could try it again?" She asked suddenly and Happy's eyes widened at the thought. She stopped jogging on the spot and quickly rummaged around for another small object she could throw and came up with another well-worn tool that could easily be replaced once they were all home and safe. She gave it an experimental swing, no doubt gauging its weight and how much effort she'd need to hit the same tile as before.

She tossed it at the tile. It hit. Seconds raced passed as they anxiously waited for something to happen.

"Is it safe to say there's only one shot per tile, yet?" Sylvester asked, his face going red from his continued exertion.

"Yeah, I think it is." Toby replied, a touch of disbelief and suspicion in his voice. No way was Collins going to let them off as easy as that. He stopped jumping and stood still to think. They all fell still, trying to control their breathing and holding various swathes of fabric to their mouths and noses.

"Be careful about which tiles you hit." Florence's voice echoed through their comms system and the shadow of foreboding that Toby had sensed grew darker. "Some of those elements are toxic. And the closer you get to the other end, the more toxic gasses you'll meet." She warned, and that's when Toby realised that just tossing things at tiles wasn't going to cut it entirely. It would get them so far, but the minute they started getting to the liquid metals and the gasses, things were going to get risky. And that's also why there was more oxygen in the maze… to dilute any dangerous gasses before those gasses escaped the room.

"Ok, I reckon the best plan of action is to send someone along the tiles, disarming the ones we know are safe to create a safe path for the rest of us." Happy summarised. And it seemed like the best theory they had.

"I'll go." The Commander replied before the plan could even be agreed on. And he turned to face the grid of tiles.

"Wait! Do you know what these tiles represent? Do you know the periodic table off by heart and what the elements could do to you?" Happy asked as she stepped in front of him with her hand of his chest to stop him moving any further toward the tiles. His silence was answer enough. "I'm going with you." She finished and moved to collect her tool bag from the floor where she'd placed it.

Toby was instantly against the idea and protested loudly. "What? No! I'll go! I'm the doctor here, I can fix things if something goes wrong out there." His cries were expected though and Happy turned to him with a stern look in her eye.

"You need to rest." She said and her tone of voice brokered no arguing. "If something happens, you'll have a clear path to get to us, but you'll be no use to anyone if you run yourself to the breaking point. Extra O2 or not." She added, "Your body will still be recovering from that running stint. You know as well as I do that even though you may feel fine, you are not ok." Her tone softened a little at the end of her comment and his shoulders slumped a little. She pulled down his shirt from covering his nose and mouth and gave him a quick kiss on his stunned lips. "I need you to be one hundred percent able to deal with whatever state we find Walter in." She added and her reasoning made sense in ways he hated. "If Collins really was after the BBI research, and he's put this much effort into stalling us from getting to Walt, then I dread to think what Collins' has actually done to him." She said and the whole team suddenly felt the weight on their collective shoulders double.

Paige felt herself tremble at the harsh reminder that Walter was in mortal peril as they stood there and argued over who was going to play hero next. The danger was real. The possibility of losing the one they'd come all this way for was strong and that thought alone sobered them all.

No wonder Happy's patience had been wire thin.

"Have faith in me Toby. I can do this." Happy said and gave the doctor another chaste kiss before hitching her tool bag onto her shoulders and stepping up toward the grid of tiles; scarf in place over her nose and mouth.

"Be careful." Toby replied softly and watched with an aching heart as she turned to look back at him with a small determined smile that he just knew was hiding under her scarf. The Commander had taken the opportunity to collect as many small but heavy items as he could from the whole group so that they'd have enough trigger items to throw onto the tiles to disarm them with. Paige's satchel hung across his shoulder, weighed down by said items as he stood waiting for the small but intimidating woman to join him. He was in the lead, his objective of protecting the 'brain' clearly having made that choice for him and he stood ready to be told which tile to disarm first.

"Ok Flo, which atomic number is the least dangerous to us? Nineteen, thirty-seven, fifty-five or eighty-seven?" She asked into the comms and Florence was quick to answer.

"That's Potassium, Rubidium, Caesium, and Francium." Florence recited, "Francium is highly radioactive so don't touch that one. Caesium is very reactive to water and can also be radioactive in large quantities. Rubidium is also highly reactive and creates peroxides when in contact with air –this isn't dangerous in mild quantities, but if you stay in the area for too long it could affect your balance which I would imagine would not be wise in this situation." The implications of this test were becoming more dangerous with each property that Florence recited to them. Paige felt her heart clench in frustration and fear. Especially considering the high levels of oxygen in the room at the moment, some of those reactions would be more volatile than usual.

"Potassium is also very reactive in large quantities but is the least dangerous. Its radioactive state is safe for humans to withstand. I would go with that tile. But before you start, Ralph and I want to go through possible path variations so that you don't end up boxed in by dangerous tiles." The chemist added and she had a good point.

"Good idea Flo," Sylvester praised, "How long do you think it'll take to map out?" He asked, reminding them all that they were still racing against time.

"It shouldn't take long." Ralph replied into the comms as Florence lost herself in the properties of the entire periodic table with the aim of finding the least dangerous path across the booby-trapped tiles.

A quiet lull fell upon those gathered in the maze as they waited impatiently for the verdict.

Paige felt her eyes drawn to the door on the other end of the grid, and her eyes narrowed slightly in confusion at what she was seeing. Then once again felt the blood drain from her face dramatically.

"Oh no! Amberle!"


	27. Ch26: Saving Private O'Brien Part 1

**Mind Games**

**Summary:** What do you get when you cross a depressed emotionally ill-equipped genius with a logical acidic solution?

**Disclaimer:** This is a fan-fiction story of the TV Series: Scorpion, and is in no way affiliated with the actual story/series in any of the aforementioned media. All characters and other materials related to the show that are used are not intended to infringe on any Copyrights. Elemental-Zer0 takes sole responsibility for any mistakes or offence that may be taken but truly not meant. However, any characters that are not related to any copyrights are copyrighted to Elemental-Zer0, as are any adaptions/variations to the plot set out in the original author's story/plot.

**Authors Note: **Chapter twenty-six. Is this the moment? Are they finally going to find Walter?

No flames please. If you have any criticism to make please do it _politely_ otherwise, I shall ignore your words. (It's happened before, I'm sorry to say, and I hadn't even posted any real chapters…)

* * *

_**Chapter Twenty-Six: **__**Saving Private O'Brien Part 1**_

Paige's cry had everyone turning their head to the door and the little window they could see through. Inside the room, little Amberle had woken up was crying as she tried to escape the cage she was dangling in. But what had Paige so scared was the rope knot that was holding Amberle's cage in the air. It was slipping undone with every major move the child created.

And they had no idea what was underneath the cage.

"Flo, we need that path now!" Toby cried into the comms and Florence's panicky voice came back almost instantly.

"Ok, Potassium, Calcium, Scandium, and Titanium are fine. That's nineteen, twenty, twenty-one and twenty-two. But you'll have to go diagonal down to Niobium, number forty-one." She replied quickly. "Let me know when you're there and I'll work out the rest while you're disabling those tiles." She added and Paige could tell the poor woman was almost at her breaking point. She must be eager to go and see her sister after all this time being separated from her, and with the previous threat of Abigail being hurt if she didn't comply, Paige could imagine the small woman becoming beyond frazzled, and that wasn't considering the recent attempt on her life either. The stress of all that alone would break weaker minds, let alone having to carry on the mission with other lives at stake.

While she wasn't overly fond of the woman, what with the impact of her actions having split Paige and Walter up in the end, Paige did find herself sympathizing with the young chemist. None of them deserved even half of what they'd all been forced to endure at the hands of the crazy ex team member. Mark Collins certainly had a lot to answer for.

When she got her hands on him…

"Four tiles forward Commander, then one forward right diagonally." Happy translated for the burly man in front of her.

"Got it." The Commander responded and he tossed the first weighted item onto the first tile. A dart shot out of a hidden flap in the wall and landed, point deep into the tile. Happy carefully extracted the dart and examined it while the Commander stepped forward and proceeded to clear the other tiles.

The dart definitely held a sample of the element that the tile represented. Being a mechanic, she could easily identify certain metals. Potassium being one of them. Hopefully, if they played it safe like this, then it shouldn't matter what element they trigger as long as the element in the dart wasn't radioactive and that the dart could hold a gas inside once deployed.

Really it was the gaseous and radioactive elements they had to avoid. Happy tucked the Potassium dart away. They could use it as a weighted trigger if they ran out. She collected the other three darts that the Commander had managed to trigger and watched as he carefully tossed the final trigger item on the last tile, the one that was diagonally across to the right.

"We're at Niobium Flo, what's next?" She asked into the comms and waited for Florence's response.

"You can go forward from niobium to Molybdenum. Then up to Chromium. You can keep following the upper line until Zinc. I'm still working on the elements after that." Florence replied, her voice sounding much calmer than it had few minutes prior. Happy wondered if it had something to do with the fact that she was in her element – no pun intended – and that was something she was familiar with.

"Ok, go forward one from Niobium." Happy coached the Commander and he disabled Molybdenum and safely stepped onto the tile. Happy followed and stepped onto the previous vacated Niobium. "Ok, now across left." Happy directed. "Back to the line we were just on." She added. If the tiles had been smaller, they could have risked jumping the one tile they were avoiding but the jump was too big for shorter legs and they had to clear a path for all of them to cross. And while the majority of team Scorpion were fairly tall or long legged, Happy and Paige were not and two of the Commander's men were also not blessed with vertical abundance. So, around they went.

The Commander made fast progress and before she knew it, they were at the Zinc tile already. Happy quickly told him to stop while she checked with Florence for the next tile.

"Gallium and Germanium are fine, but after that is Arsenic. You should go down two, that's Tin and Lead." Florence directed and Happy relayed the information to the commander who continued in his forward progression through Gallium and Germanium then turned to Tin and Lead.

"Ok, what's after Lead?" Happy asked,

"Across to Bismuth, then diagonal up to Tellurium. Its straight to the end from there across Iodine and Krypton." Florence replied. "But be careful with Krypton, it displaces Oxygen and can easily cause asphyxiation if too much is released in to a confined area." She warned and Happy noted that away.

"Well, it's a good thing we've got plenty of Oxygen at the moment then." Toby piped up and Happy half heard him from behind her and half over the comms. It was startling to realise how long the grid was. The tiles were more like letter box shapes than actual square boxes so made the length of the table a lot longer than its width. It was also the reason it was difficult to jump across the tiles.

"Happy, we're going to start following your markers." Paige commented and Happy turned to see that they were now lining up behind the first tile that still had the weighted trigger item they'd left in place. It would be fairly simple to follow now. She turned back to see how the Commander was coming along. They'd moved forward on to Tellurium now and he was just triggering Iodine. All that was left was Krypton but Happy suddenly had a thought.

"Wait up big guy. Don't trigger the last one yet." She said. Toby picked up on the comment quickly.

"Something wrong?" He asked, he was on tile two, behind Paige who was behind an agent leading the way.

"Maybe." Happy replied over the comms to better explain her theory. "I think its best if we all go through the last tile as quickly as possible. Leave as little time for the gas to release. The less time we give it, the less it releases into the area." She replied. Sylvester frowned to himself as he stood on the first tile following Toby who'd shuffled along after the progressing two in front of him.

"Isn't it only a small amount? I can't imagine you'd be able to fit enough Krypton gas into that small a dart to be a threat to us." He asked as he shuffled onto the second tile, following the line of people before him who were making fairly swift pace.

"No, but I don't think Collins is going to let us off that easily with gasses." Happy replied and Sylvester froze at the terrifying comment.

"What do you mean?" He asked nervously, unable to back step due to another agent stood behind him on tile one. He supposed that was a good thing or he'd have been back peddling before he'd even known he was moving. The elevated oxygen was getting to him again he surmised as he felt his fear levels spiking more so than he was sued to.

"I mean these darts aren't airtight. There's no way the gas will stay in the dart long enough to wait for us to trigger the trap. It's got to be a different method of release." Happy explained. "I think it'll be an aerosol dispersal feed and I have no idea how long the dispersal will go on for. I'd rather not risk over exposure, even with the extra O2 in the area." She elaborated.

"Oh great." Sylvester mumbled as he forced himself to move forward one more tile when Toby did.

"Ok, we'll wait for your signal." Paige replied and she relayed the key points to the agents who were not linked in to Scorpions comms.

Happy silently hoped she was wrong but with Collins, she'd learned you can never be too careful with how to proceed. So, she waited for the agent leading the death-defying conga line to reach the tile behind hers.

"Ok, When the gas tile is triggered, I need you to move as fast as you can toward the door in the wall opposite us. Crouch down until I say its safe to go into the room behind the door. If the gas is on a fast release valve it will travel up so keep low. I need to be sure the door is not rigged before we open it." Happy said in a clear voice to everyone in the line. They all murmured their affirmative responses. "Ok, big guy." She turned back to the Commander who'd turned sideways to listen to her plan. "On my count." She said and he readied himself for the final trigger.

"One," she started, and everyone tensed, ready to move as soon as they could.

"Two," The Commander crouched a little, pulling his arm back for the gently swing he'd need to send the projectile to its target. They all breathed in and held it, ready for the final number.

"…THREE!"

The tile triggered a hiss of a gas nozzle and as one they surged forward toward the door like a long children's train toy on a set track. No other traps were triggered but the continued hiss proved Happy's theory correct; that the gaseous tiles were rigged differently. The whole group crouched down law to the ground as they'd been told and made a beeline to the door. Happy worked quickly to inspect the door for anything else that might set off a trigger or a trap.

She found none. So, she took a risk and pulled the door open. She rushed inside and as she turned to call the others in, she found that she didn't need to. They were already following her inside. The last Agent finally fell through the door way and slammed the door shut. They may have a problem getting out the way they came in but at least for now they were fairly safe.

Her attention however was drawn instantly to the crying baby in the cage that was slowly coming loose of his rope. A quick glance at the floor and Happy's stomach dropped. Beneath the cage that Amberle was trapped in and precariously dangling over, was a set of horrific looking spikes stuck into the floor and rising up ready to catch the helpless child through the cage bottom.

As she watched, the rope came loose. She had only seconds to act.

In a action very reminiscent of the one she utilized to free Toby from the floss prison a few years ago, Happy threw herself toward the cage and knocked it off course as it fell. She fell to the ground beside the cage and it took only half a minute before there were hands helping her up and attending to the crying child inside.

She allowed herself to be pulled up to her feet, only to find herself pulled into a tight hug by her husband. He was shaking, either from exertion, adrenaline, fear or all three, Happy didn't know but she held onto him tightly too for his sake. And maybe a little of her own too.

"Shhhh, its ok sweetie, you're ok." Paige was cradling the screaming toddler as they all recovered from the most recent action-packed adventure. Eventually Toby pulled away from Happy and murmured his need to check on the toddler and anyone else for any more injuries.

There was a momentary lull where both agent and genius took a moment to relish the lack of imminent danger.

Toby checked Amberle over, finding only a few superficial cuts from the tumble in the cage. She was tired, scared and just overall miserable but she'd live. Not that her cries would tell you that. Toby quickly checked everyone else, all of which reported no injuries or worrisome symptoms. For now, going back the way they'd just come in from was not an option. The area outside the door was no doubt still filling with Krypton gas. It would asphyxiate anyone trying to get through it in minutes. And a young set of lungs would certainly not survive the journey.

"Commander, can you get your guys to bring down a set of oxygen tanks and masks?" Toby asked, "You'll need to tell them how to get here through the maze and across that grid of death." He added as a precaution. The Commander nodded and started chatting into his radio.

Paige had passed the toddler off to an agent who was going to wait in the room with her and another agent until the oxygen masks arrived. That left them with the original numbers they had to begin with; four members of Team Scorpion, one Commander and two Homeland agents. They regrouped and found a small corridor heading away from the cage room. It was dark and foreboding. This had to be the final step. This had to lead to Walter now.

Paige gripped the spare flashlight that Toby handed to her from the pack he'd brought with him. Happy brought her own out of her tool bag. The Agents had one each attached to their combat vests.

In silent agreement, the Commander put himself in the lead, the brains found themselves in the middle of the formation while the two agents brought up the rear. In a moment of solidarity, the two teams who'd bickered heatedly in the Homeland temporary Headquarters opposite the building, were now in complete faith of one another's skills and abilities.

As one, they pressed on, toward the final target of the mission. Paige's heart fluttered in her chest at the thought of finally reuniting with the man she'd hurt so badly.

The corridor was shorter than it appeared and not one of them could claim that they hadn't been scared when a screen, previously hidden by shadows, sprang to life and greeted them loudly.

"You made it!" The screen shouted though its tinny speakers and a close up of Collins' face appeared on the screen in full bright display. "I have to admit; I didn't think you'd make it this far! Clever little geniuses, you've been doing your homework! Mama's so proud." The taunt at this point jarred everyone's nerves and even the Commander twitched at the condescending tone.

"But the adventure's not over yet! You've got one more problem to solve, and boy is this one a doozey! I'm so excited, I can barely stand it." Collins' recording continued in spite of the rising emotion. "You have three clues to puzzle out. Get them wrong and the consequences might be worse than death." He warned. All genius ears perked up at the mention of clues to figure out. With no means of writing anything down they'd have to remember it all word for word. Not a difficult task but it helped to pay close attention anyway.

"The clues will tell you which of the three switches will release the prize. Your first clue is this: _Name an eight-letter word that has 'kst' in the middle, in the beginning, and at the end._ Your second clue is: _What number squared = 12345678987654321? _And your final clue is: _A throat pain and an animal are the same thing._" Collins' face moved closer to the camera lens giving the screen the effect that he was peering at you from the other side of the TV. "Did ya get all that down?" He asked and the screen promptly clicked off.

For a moment, the group stood in stunned silence until another click caught their attention. At first, they thought it was another trap being triggered but then a dim light shone into the hallway from a little to the left of the screen. A door had opened for them.

The Commander went in first and Paige found herself following him in close behind. The sight the met her eyes was truly beyond words. switches, buttons and levers of all kinds littered the whole room. They were everywhere; all over the walls, the ceiling, wired up to even things like staplers and waste baskets. It was quite the sight, like something out of an old Frankenstein movie only ten times worse.

And in the middle of all the wires and switches, was a glass isolation unit, the inside lit up dimly with a cheap battery-operated LED from a thrift store.

And inside the unit…

"Walter…"


	28. Ch27: Saving Private O'Brien Part 2

**Mind Games**

**Summary:** What do you get when you cross a depressed emotionally ill-equipped genius with a logical acidic solution?

**Disclaimer:** This is a fan-fiction story of the TV Series: Scorpion, and is in no way affiliated with the actual story/series in any of the aforementioned media. All characters and other materials related to the show that are used are not intended to infringe on any Copyrights. Elemental-Zer0 takes sole responsibility for any mistakes or offence that may be taken but truly not meant. However, any characters that are not related to any copyrights are copyrighted to Elemental-Zer0, as are any adaptions/variations to the plot set out in the original author's story/plot.

**Authors Note: **Chapter twenty-seven. Has anyone tried to crack the clues yet? There's one answer below, but its not as easy as it seems.

No flames please. If you have any criticism to make please do it _politely_ otherwise, I shall ignore your words. (It's happened before, I'm sorry to say, and I hadn't even posted any real chapters…)

* * *

_**Chapter Twenty-Seven: **__**Saving Private O'Brien Part 2**_

"Walter…" Paige all but whispered as she set eyes on the man they'd been fighting tooth and nail to find. Tears sprang up from nowhere and she made to move toward him.

Paige was held back from surging forward though by Toby's firm grip on her elbow. She was stopped in her tracks and she turned to him, surprised by her own actions but also desperate to get to Walter.

He was right there.

"Paige, we don't know what kind of traps there are in here." Toby warned. "Let the Commander do what he's done for all the other rooms we've been in so far." He added, and reluctantly she stopped pulling away from him. Instead, her eyes locked onto his sleeping face in concern.

"What's wrong with him?" She asked softly, unable to look away. Toby gave his former boss a quick glance from the doorway, assessing the equipment with his medical perspective. He couldn't do it in a clinical fashion because that would imply that he could focus on the patient _without_ an emotional attachment. Ordinarily, if one of them got hurt he could work to a degree in this fashion, but he'd never fully succeeded in switching off his emotions when it came to them. And with the way things ended with Walter the last time he'd been in the same room as the man, it was all the more emotional to see him in this condition.

"Looks like he's been sedated…" Toby muttered as he took in the whole set up and winced in sympathy. It was painful to even look at, so he couldn't imagine the level of discomfort Walter would be feeling if he were awake.

"It's safe as far as I can tell." The Commander confirmed, "Don't know about all these switches but common sense tells me not to touch any of them until you brains can figure out the clues." He added unnecessarily.

Paige surged forward with Toby and Happy in tow, all three bee-lining to the isolation unit. It was a long glass tube that encompassed the small gurney that Walter had been secured to. The leather restraints failed to hide the bruises and scraped skin where their boss had obviously been awake enough at one point to try and struggle free. There were also hundreds of miniature scratches and open wounds, some of which still had bits of metal and debris embedded inside. With a sinking feeling, Toby realised that it was shrapnel from the bomb that had first alerted them to this whole saga only two days ago. Collins' clearly hadn't bothered with any first aid. He could only guess at the types of bacteria that he'd have to help the stricken man battle in the coming days. His work was definitely cut out for him. He just hoped sepsis hadn't already set in.

As he made his assessment, his gaze travelled up the tube to Walter's unnaturally still face and there he spied another problem he was going to have to battle. There were fresh stitches on Walter's head, just before the left temple and above the eyebrow. They were swollen and angry looking, clearly infected too but that wasn't what had Toby concerned, it was what the stitches were hiding underneath the sliced patch of skin they were holding together.

This would no doubt be where Collins' had installed the BBI chip.

"Uh, so we can't just jerry rig the thing open." Happy's voice called out from somewhere beneath the isolation unit and as Toby stepped back, she emerged from underneath the unit with a very concerned look on her face.

"Why not?" Paige asked. Her eyes still not leaving Walter's face. She had her hand pressed on the glass that separated them but Happy stepped forward and gently removed her hand from the glass unit. Both Paige and Toby gave her a questioning look. And Toby was sure that the others in the room bore similar looks too, but he couldn't see them.

"It's rigged to blow." Happy's reason left a stunned silence in its jarring wake.

"What?!" Sylvester's voice broke the spell that had shocked them still. It had been an exasperated tone but with a large amount of concern hidden in there too.

"Yeah it gets worse." Toby added as he spied something through the glass unit. The cannula that was hooked into Walter's nostrils had three tubes that flowed into it and they in turn were secured to the nozzles of three different tanks under the bed. As he squatted down to see the underneath, he read the labels on the canisters and felt his stomach clench. Each canister had a large amount of C4 stuck in-between them, which is what Toby presumed Happy had been investigating.

"Yeah, the bomb's attached to gasses that are hooked up to Walter's airways through that cannula." Happy elaborated for him, having seen them herself too.

"And they're hooked up to switches in this room, but I can't tell which ones since the wires disappear into the wall." Toby added as he stood and gave the group a somber look. Sylvester picked up on it quickly.

"What is it Toby?" the mathematician found himself asking, though he was pretty sure he didn't want to know. Toby took a sigh and scrubbed at his face tiredly.

"The gasses that he's hooked up to are Oxygen, Nitrous Oxide," He paused and sighed deeply before saying the name of the final gas. "And Krypton gas." He finished.

"We just fought our way through that shit, now we got more to deal with?" One of the agents muttered in dejection, but a sharp look from the Commander silenced the young man.

"Ok." Sylvester started, analyzing the situation as was best suited to his expertise. "We can't free Walter with brute force. If we flip the wrong switch, there's evidence to prove that the consequences will be fatal. There are hundreds of switches here but only three clues." He said, bringing the problem into focus as the others listened closely. "I think its safe to assume that the three clues release three things holding Walter captive. One, the isolation unit itself. Two, the gas he's hooked up to. And three, the sedative that's keeping him unconscious right now." He finalized, and when it was summarized to succinctly, it wasn't as messy as it first appeared.

That didn't make it any less difficult to solve though.

"Sly, what's the answer to the square root question." Toby asked. This would be an easy equation for Sylvester, so the answer had to be on one of the switches. It was a good place to start.

"One hundred eleven million, one hundred eleven thousand, one hundred and eleven." Was the prompt response. "Or six ones in a row as you look at the numeric value." He added for those less savvy with numbers.

"Ok, everyone needs to look for a switch with six number ones on it." Toby barked and they all split up to search the room full of switches. It took only half a minute before the Commander piped up.

"Found it!" He pointed toward one of the switches on the ceiling above them. It had a label that read '_111,111,111_' in black marker pen next to it. But there was another message on the same label that read; '_Binary's are better for coding_' which, while made sense as a sentence on its own, didn't make much sense as an answer to their clue.

Then it clicked, it was another clue. That wasn't the right switch.

But the Commander's hand was already applying pressure to the switch.

"No!" Toby's call startled the Commander who stopped immediately but in doing so, managed to stumble backwards a step and knocked the waste basket slightly, though no one seemed to notice. However, this flicked another switch that was now slowly triggering what it had been wired to do.

And none of them would know it, until it happened.

* * *

It had been a long walk through the subterranean flood tunnels – _and had gotten a bit tight in a few places too_ – but Collins was well and truly out of the vicinity of the warehouse that had been his home for the past few months. His duffel bag dug heavily into his shoulder as he carried it to the waiting car that he'd hidden at the end of the tunnel system all those months ago when he first started on this mission. He dumped the bag into the back seat and fished out the keys for the ignition.

In minutes he was driving across the city, on his way to his other safe house he'd set up for himself. In Canada. The border was a small hitch but not one he couldn't solve. He had a plan and a few contacts who wouldn't question his motives at the right price. Things were going rather well. He was pleased with the results and the data he'd downloaded from Walter's brain would be the next project that took his attention.

It was only a copy of his brain schematics. The readings he'd recorded while forcing Walter to relive harsh moments and happy moments in his hallucinations. Then the thought control and synapse mapping that he noted down through his probes. And finally, it had a direct link to the chip he'd installed into Walter's head, ready for the next phase of the project.

If Collins could isolate certain responses and recalls, he could successfully rewire Walter's brain remotely. By the end of it all, he'd have Walter walking voluntarily to him with open arms and that fascinating brain of his ready to follow Collins' beck and whim.

He chuckled to himself and settled into his seat a little more.

He had a long drive ahead of himself.


	29. Ch28: Saving Private O'Brien Part 3

**Mind Games**

**Summary:** What do you get when you cross a depressed emotionally ill-equipped genius with a logical acidic solution?

**Disclaimer:** This is a fan-fiction story of the TV Series: Scorpion, and is in no way affiliated with the actual story/series in any of the aforementioned media. All characters and other materials related to the show that are used are not intended to infringe on any Copyrights. Elemental-Zer0 takes sole responsibility for any mistakes or offence that may be taken but truly not meant. However, any characters that are not related to any copyrights are copyrighted to Elemental-Zer0, as are any adaptions/variations to the plot set out in the original author's story/plot.

**Authors Note: **Chapter twenty-eight

No flames please. If you have any criticism to make please do it _politely_ otherwise, I shall ignore your words. (It's happened before, I'm sorry to say, and I hadn't even posted any real chapters…)

* * *

_**Chapter Twenty-Eight: **__**Saving Private O'Brien Part 3**_

"The clue next to it. Says 'Binary's are better for coding' – I think that's a hint. I don't think this is the right switch." Toby said quickly so as to calm everyone down after his cry had scared them all.

"What does it mean though?" Happy asked as she stared at the label. It was Sylvester who came to the rescue with the answer.

"It's a binary code!" He said animatedly. "The answer to the riddle is a binary code for the actual symbol we need to find!" He elaborated at their confused looks.

"Well that's great, what's the symbol we need to find?" Paige asked. Sylvester began to search the switches as he described the symbol to look for.

"It's a lower case 'y' with an umlaut above it." Happy and Toby instantly lit up and started looking too but the others just gave him more confused looks. He sighed and explained. "That's a mid-eastern European punctuation term. You're looking for a lower-case 'y' with two dots above it." He detailed and they finally understood what to look for.

It took a whole minute this time, the symbol being something much smaller than a six-figure number, but Happy finally found it on the wall behind the door they'd come in through.

"Uh guys, I found it but there's another message." She said.

"What's it say?" Sylvester asked, and Happy read it out loud.

"Just says; '_There's an order for everything._' That's it." She recited. Confusion reigned high on the group as the out-of-context message tempted and taunted them at the same time.

"Sly, is there an order or a pattern in binary that this symbol needs to do with coding?" Toby asked, eyeing the switch with a gambler's temptation but unwilling to risk his friend's life on a hunch.

"No," Sylvester replied, "I mean coding is a pattern-based activity anyway, and it wholly depends on what your goal is. But the symbol here doesn't play any part that I'm aware of." He elaborated, but as he suspected, it wasn't helpful information.

"So, that only means that there must be an order to the switches, which means that if we don't flick the switches in the right order something bad might happen. And that must mean there is an order to the riddles." Toby surmised, "What order did Collins tell them in?" He asked, his mind already trying to recall the unsightly image of Collins on the screen again. It wasn't a pretty sight.

"There was the word riddle, then this one, then the throat one." Happy provided and Toby's attention switched to the first riddle.

"_Name an eight-letter word that has kst in the middle, in the beginning, and at the end…_" He murmured from memory.

"What if we write it down?" Paige asked, and all three geniuses looked at her with confusion before Toby's eyes lit up in understanding.

"Yes, maybe it's a visual puzzle." He said as he rummaged in his med-bag for his notebook and a pen, he continued to explain the theory. "Sometimes, wordplay riddles make more sense when written down. When you look at the words, your perspective switches to visual and new possible answers will become clearer than they would when using only an auditory format." He finished writing the riddle out in his notebook, unwilling to touch the paper on the desk in the room or even the dry-wipe board for that matter.

He studied the piece of paper for a moment before shaking his head deadpan. "Nope, I'm not wiser for this. Sly, you have a go." He said as he tossed the notebook to Sylvester who caught it easily despite his clumsy nature. Sylvester studied the words written down while the others discussed the final clue. It made sense to figure out the answers then figure out the order they should be activated.

"What was the third clue?" Paige asked, her memory not as good with details as the others. Happy recited it perfectly for her.

"_A throat pain and an animal are the same thing._" She said as she pondered.

"A frog?" Paige suggested. "As in the saying, _a-frog-in-the-throat_." She elaborated and while the agents were impressed, Toby and Happy shook their heads.

"No, Collins would argue that a frog is an amphibian. Not an animal." Toby replied. "We had an extensive argument before he first left about the fact that the term 'animals' should encompass everyone but humans, but he argued that the word '_animal_' only included warm blooded creatures. I, of course, argued the socially accepted meaning was 'anything not associated with humans' but he had to be right so we were up half the night at it, and I walked away feeling angry and frustrated with him." He described; his eyes had glazed over a little as he recalled the argument with vivid clarity.

"We can do a web search from here, see if any of the riddles are listed somewhere with the answers." Ralph suggested over the comms but Toby was only half enthusiastic about that idea.

"It might help us find the answer to the riddle but as we found out with the first one we tried; I don't think the answers will be the switches we're looking for." Toby replied, "but it will speed things up a bit, go for it Ralphie." He said and turned back to Walter's unit to check he was still stable. But something caught his eye as he did.

Walter was frowning lightly in his sleep.

Toby's own brow furrowed at the sight and he paused to study the new activity. Sodium Thiopental, the sedative he'd identified when he did his initial assessment of the apparatus, was a complete conscious lockdown at the right dose. So far, there'd been no signs of Walter having any less than a complete dose to keep him out-cold. So why was he only now showing signs of consciousness?

"What is it?" Happy asked as she spotted her husband's distracted stare. She followed his gaze but didn't register anything out of the ordinary. The others soon looked over at the doctor, their collective curiosity and fear both equally piqued.

"Walter's waking up." Toby replied as he moved closer to the isolation. The energy in the room turned to a muted excitement as they all took a step toward the unit where Walter was indeed stirring gradually. They kept their distance though so as to give Toby enough room to work as best he could with his newest patient.

"If he moves too much, the C4 might…" Happy said but trailed off, unwilling to voice what would happen to their boss if he became agitated. Toby gave her a look of alarm.

"Is the trigger that loose?" He asked, his voice unable to hide the strong concern he was feeling with this new information.

"I can't be sure, the trigger's hidden under a containment unit. I'm afraid to open it in case there's a pressure trigger on the compartment fixture. I have a strong suspicion that there is. If Collins made it easy to disable the bomb, there'd be no point in going to all that trouble to begin with." She explained as she watched her former boss deepen his frown and tilt his head slightly. The cannula stayed put despite the movement due to the medical tape securing the tubing to his cheeks and either side of his nose.

Paige was by the glass instantly, not allowing herself to touch the glass but getting as close to it as she dared given the threat of the bomb. She studied Walter's familiar features as he fought his way through the sedative.

"He'll be groggy and won't make much sense for a while." Toby warned and he mentally recited the typical symptoms of the sedative. "Collins used Sodium Thiopental, it's a delirium. Also, keep questions simple and impersonal, and be prepared for some honest words; he won't be able to filter his thoughts." He warned and Paige gave him a questioning glance.

"What do you mean?" She asked, not quite understanding the relevance of Toby's warning.

"Sodium Thiopental is commonly used as a truth serum." Toby answered, his eyes returning to Walter's waking movements. "He won't be able to hide his true feelings or resist the impulse to answer any questions directed toward him." Toby elaborated.

"Collins must have used it to get the information from Walter about his research in to the BBI project." Happy guessed as she too came close to the unit, coming to a standstill opposite Toby and Paige. Her glance however went to Paige who looked so lost that it hurt to watch. Happy gave Toby a covert look and hinted toward Paige. Toby understood and gave her a nod. They needed Paige's expertise here, like they had when Walter had been suffering ataxia – _the lack of bodily coordination, awareness and hallucinations due to lack of oxygen _– on the space shuttle that had accidentally launched him into Earth's orbit. At that time, it had been only Paige's voice that could influence Walter's behaviour. It was probably best to leave Walter's care in her hands for now. Overwhelming Walter in this state would only worry and agitate him, and that could trigger the bomb. Happy stood back out of view while Toby tapped Paige on the shoulder to get her attention.

"Look, when he comes around, he's going to be confused and won't be completely aware of his surroundings. If we try to explain to him that he's sat on a hair-trigger bomb, he may become agitated and try to escape in his confusion. I need you to stay with him and keep him calm. Get him talking about safe topics, happy memories, relaxing thoughts until the sedative has cleared enough for him to understand his situation." Toby explained and Paige's eyes widened at the sudden ask.

"Like in the shuttle?" She queried, making the same connection Toby and Happy had.

"Yes, I think your voice is going to have the most effective influence on him right now." Toby confirmed and prepared to leave her side, but not without imparting another much needed warning. "And, if you want to know how he truly feels about you, now would be the best time to get the truth from him." He suggested, "Just keep it calm and controlled, don't get him upset or it might trigger the bomb." He added and moved away.

Sylvester watched from his spot by the door but didn't question the unheard conversation between Toby and Paige. Instead he held up the notebook with a gleam in his eyes. He'd figured it out. And without Ralph's web help.

"I got it." He declared but Toby hushed him before he could spill the answer.

"We have to keep quiet for a moment. Walter's coming around but we need him to keep calm and still, in case the bomb is motion detected. He's going to be confused and delirious for a while so any loud noises and crowding might overwhelm him." The doctor warned the rest of the group. And it was Florence who asked the question Toby had been pondering when he'd first noticed Walter's waking signs.

"Why is he waking up now?" She asked over the comms. "It makes no sense unless the sedative feed was switched off." She added. And Toby frowned again as he was reminded of his initial concerns.

"I don't know." He admitted. "I can only guess that a switch was accidentally activated, and we were just miraculously lucky it wasn't anything dangerous." He theorized.

"We should look for a switch that's been moved, then. If we can locate that switch, we can find out which riddle its connected to and rule out the first switch. We'd have more of an idea on the order to follow." Happy said and it was a good plan. Toby nodded exuberantly.

"Yes! That should work." He said, "But first; Sly tell us what you have." He added and brought everyone's attention back to the mathematician.

"_Inkstand_." He said simply, then proceeded to explain as the others stared at him for a moment. "The letters '_k-s-t_' are in the middle of the word, the word '_in_' is at the beginning and the word '_and_' is at the end. It was all in the riddle." He explained and understanding dawned on the group's faces. Toby felt like kicking himself, why hadn't he seen that connection? Maybe he was more worried about Walter than he was aware of?

"Great work Sly. Is there an inkstand in here anywhere?" Toby asked as he peered around, consciously keeping his voice low. The group carefully searched the room, making an effort to keep their movements slow and in the background so as not to startle the waking patient.

It was frustrating but the consequences could be devastating.

* * *

At the same time Toby, Happy, and Sylvester's conversation had started, Paige found that she couldn't look away from Walter's waking face even if she'd wanted to. He encompassed her entire attention. His brows were deeply furrowed now, his head tilted toward her. Even in a deep state of sleep, he still seemed to know where she was. As she watched him come around, Toby's words echoed around her head.

The truth. Did she want confirmation that she was right? Did she want confirmation that she was wrong? Both answers would hurt. If she'd been right, the betrayal might just kill her. And if she was wrong, the guilt would do the same.

Could she start again with him without knowing? Could she leave it in the past and move on without ever knowing? She'd live suspicious of him all the time. That wouldn't be fair to him. Or her.

"Wha~…" His slurred breathy voice brought her back to him and she placed her hand on the glass gently, despite the danger of the bomb. His eyes twitched and tried to open but only the whites of his eyes showed before they fell shut again. He tried once more, a little more successful that the first attempt but still failed to keep them open for more than half a second. His hand twitched in the restraints as though he were trying to move it to his face but obviously it wouldn't budge. Paige's heart leapt into her throat, the threat of the bomb amping her anxiety to maximum.

"Hey, Walter. Calm down honey." She soothed and she watched as the sound of her voice had an instant reaction from him. Maybe Toby was right, she had more influence over Walter than any of his peers. She wasn't sure what to do with that information.

"Pai…ge?" His voice was weak, throat clearly hoarse from disuse.

And like in a 'lightbulb' moment; a sudden surge of adrenalin had her eyes widening.

That was it.

"Hoarse." She said as she turned to the group behind her, momentarily letting her gaze leave Walter for a second as she addressed the team. They'd dispersed, having finished their conversation only seconds before. "The answer to the throat riddle: Hoarse." She added. Toby pointed at her in tempered excitement, trying not to move erratically.

"Yes!" He hissed quietly then addressed the group with the obvious instruction. "Find a symbol for a horse and keep looking for the inkstand." He said, and Paige, watched for a second before returning her eyes to Walter. He was more awake now; his eyes open but he was not completely aware of where he was yet, or who was looming over him.

"Hey, you're ok Walter. We're working on getting you out of there ok?" She soothed in her best bedside tone. "Just try to stay still." She added, noting that his hands were still tugging away from the restraints around his wrists. His eyes drooped a little and he took a deep breath in a slight sigh of frustration.

"Whass go'in on?" He asked, his words slurring heavily against the sedative still lingering in his system. She shushed him again softly, unsure if she should be telling him he was strapped to a bomb that could explode if he moved too much.

"You're ok. Just stay still for me please." She settled with, hoping that because she was the one saying it, he'd listen and blindly comply like Toby suggested he would for her. Her heart fluttered when he did as he was told; he stilled his hands and his head, and she found herself at the center of his groggy gaze. The utter adoration she found in his eyes was both flattering and terrifying at the same time.

"You're… here…" He said with a dopey smile, eyes sliding up a little but returning to her face almost instantly. Tears threatened her vision as he watched him struggle to stay awake for her.

"How could I have ever doubted you?" She asked in a whisper. She hadn't expected him to hear the question but when he frowned, she realised he had.

"B'coss I…" He started and had to wet his lips before continuing, "…lied t'you." He finished and the tears overflowed down her cheeks as she held back the sobs that threatened to engulf her.

"I _told _you to, Walter. This is my fault, not yours." She replied, her voice tightening but remaining quiet and soft. "I'm so sorry." She added, her hand pressing against the glass a little more than was necessary.

"I'm s'ry… too." Walter replied, his words becoming a little stronger the longer their conversation went on. "I knew… you dint wan'… t'go." He continued and she was riveted, she hadn't planned on asking him for the truth but here he was offering it up to her of his own will. How could she stop him? She couldn't stop listening. "It waz… so painf'l to… t'watch you… like th't." He said, his broken sentences making perfect sense to her. She knew exactly what he was trying to tell her. He'd been so upset watching her suffer the idea of going to something he wanted to go to.

He'd been trying to spare her feelings while still being able to attend the lecture. It was just how his brain was wired. It was the most efficient solution to the problem; especially given the lessons she'd given him previously about white-lies. How else could she have expected him to react?

"I know Walt. I know." She replied, struggling to stop her tears. He seemed to register her distress and frowned when he tried to move his hands again to hold her but found that he couldn't. "Walter, stop. You're strapped down." She explained to him slowly and his frown deepened again.

"Why?" He asked, a flicker of fear flashed across his eyes.

"Collins took you, remember?" She asked, "We've only just managed to find you but there's a problem. We can't get you out yet." She tried but he seemed to get more agitated as she explained.

"Collins… he… he did… something." He tried to say and instead of sounding tired and slurred, his comment was one of confused frustration like he was trying to remember something important. All the while, he was tugging his wrists and risking setting off the bomb that he didn't know about yet.

"Walter, stop. You need to stay still." Her voice was sharp and stern, and the concern caught his attention. He stilled and looked at her, more alert and cognizant than before but still sluggish.

"Why?" He asked and a flicker of deja-vu hit him, he'd asked this already. He was sure.

"The bed is rigged to explode, Walter." She said quietly and his eyes widened as he stared at her with unfiltered shock and fear. After a slight pause, he swallowed thickly and slowly took stock of his situation. He remembered the glass isolation tube, the restraints… the pain.

"Collins did something to me." He found himself saying as he put his head back against the bed carefully, and squeezed his eyes shut against the memories resurfacing. "To my brain." He clarified after a pause, and it was at that point that Paige decided Toby needed to be part of this conversation. She caught his attention and waved him over.

He was by her side in seconds.

"Hey one-ninety-seven, how we doing?" Toby asked, his tone of voice purposely upbeat in an attempt to dispel any lingering negative thoughts. It didn't work.

"Collins did something to my brain." Walter repeated, eyes remaining closed but this time he seemed to be in pain rather than sleepy. "He wanted my research on the BBI." He added, his sentences becoming more constructed and his voice stronger than before. The sedative was wearing off.

"We know buddy. I'm working on that next, but first we gotta get you outta there first so I can get to your noggin'." Toby replied, his voice was calm and confident, and he could see that Walter was unconsciously drawing on that and relaxing into the idea that they had things under control.

"Ok, please hurry." Walter pleaded and it was jarring to see. "My head is killing me." He added and Toby watched as beads of sweat formed on the trapped man's forehead. His skin was pale too.

"Talk to me Walter, tell the doctor where it hurts." Toby coaxed, a note of concern ringing in his voice that Paige instantly picked up on.

"All over. Feel achy. Tired. Breathless." Walter ticked off, "Dizzy and nauseous." He added after a half second pause. "And my head…" He trailed off and paled further. "I feel like I'm going to vomit." He swallowed rapidly in an attempt to stave off the urge to throw up.

"Ok, try to keep it under control. We're working on getting you outta there." Toby said and turned away from the unit, but Paige's hand shot out and she followed him a few steps away from where Walter could hear them.

"I heard your tone of voice Toby, what's wrong?" She asked, worried for her soul mate. Toby gave a suffering sigh and paused to gather his thoughts.

"The infection is spreading. All those tiny cuts he has are festering and the infection is starting to become a real concern now." He explained quietly. "And I'm worried about encephalitis too." She gave him a confused look, so he took it to mean she had no idea what encephalitis was. "It's a brain infection. If its untreated it can cause severe weakness, loss of consciousness and…" he trailed off, his own skin tone paling a little.

"And?" Paige prompted, unsure if she wanted to hear the rest of what he had to say.

"…And seizures." Toby finished. And it dawned on Paige just how bad encephalitis was for them. Not just in general, because yes; that was bad for anyone. But with the bomb underneath the unit, if Walter suffered a seizure…

Paige's face paled too.


	30. Ch29: Saving Private O'Brien Part 4

**Mind Games**

**Summary:** What do you get when you cross a depressed emotionally ill-equipped genius with a logical acidic solution?

**Disclaimer:** This is a fan-fiction story of the TV Series: Scorpion, and is in no way affiliated with the actual story/series in any of the aforementioned media. All characters and other materials related to the show that are used are not intended to infringe on any Copyrights. Elemental-Zer0 takes sole responsibility for any mistakes or offence that may be taken but truly not meant. However, any characters that are not related to any copyrights are copyrighted to Elemental-Zer0, as are any adaptions/variations to the plot set out in the original author's story/plot.

**Authors Note: **Chapter twenty-nine. One more chapter after this and then a small epilogue. Kinda sad it's all ending soon…

…Or is it? - I dunno... toying with the idea of a sequel... what do you think? Do you want more?

No flames please. If you have any criticism to make please do it _politely_.

* * *

_**Chapter Twenty-Nine: **__**Saving Private O'Brien Part 4**_

"Found the Horse!" One of the agents cries made everyone's heads look up. The agent who had spoken up was gesturing toward a waste paper basket that had a length of fishing wire pulled taut and connected to a switch underneath the desk it was sat next to. There was a clear depiction of a horse on a label taped to the bottom inside of the waste basket.

"Ok! So now we know what triggered the sedative to turn off." Toby declared. "Does it have an extra message next to it?" He asked, hoping for another clue as to which of the other two switches came next.

"Yes, it says; 'sea cat's fears released.' That's it." The agent read aloud, and they were stumped for a moment.

"What's a sea cat?" Toby asked out loud, frowning to himself in confusion.

"Yeah, and what does it fear?" Happy asked, stepping up next to her husband.

"Ralph can you do a search honey?" Paige asked into the comms, but it was Walter who rescued them.

"Octopus." He said from the isolation unit. The agent had spoken the riddle clearly and loudly enough for him to hear it evidently. Paige turned on the spot and was by the unit's side instantly.

"Octopus?" She queried. He nodded gently; eyes still squeezed shut against the growing pain that was now no longer hindered by the sedative. Her heart went out to him, she hated seeing him in pain.

"It's '_fear released_' is ink, because when an octopus is startled, its defence is to squirt ink to blind that which startled it." He added through clenched teeth, as though staving off a bout of agony. He looked very tense too; she could see his muscles straining with the effort to ride out the pain that he was no doubt experiencing but unable to hold or curl up into himself due to the restraints still holding him to the bed. "Though I'm not sure why an octopus and its ink are important." He added, reminding Paige that he was still largely unaware of what the answer meant in the grand scheme of getting him out of the unit but had put together enough to know that if they were trying to solve riddles it was relevant somehow.

"Ink must mean the inkstand. Which means, the inkstand is the second switch and the binary switch is the last!" Toby deduced and no one could refute his logic. "We need to find that inkstand." He added and renewed his efforts of looking. This spurred the others to also resume searching.

A pained and tense groan from the isolation unit took Paige's attention again and she held back a gasp at what she found. In the few seconds it had taken for Toby to declare the inkstand as the next switch, Walter had worsened and was now shivering. And there was a heavy sweat covering what little skin she could see. A fever had clearly set in and was rapidly growing out of control.

"Hey, hang in there Walter, we're so close to getting you out." She reassured and resumed her place at his side, her hand pressed against the glass again. this time _in spite of_ the bomb she knew was attached to the bed.

"It's so cold." Walter replied tiredly, his eyes drooping like they had when he'd first woken up from the sedative, but this time Paige knew there was no sedative involved. Hadn't Toby said one of the signs of the infection spreading was fatigue? Fear gripped her and she spun to Toby and grabbed his arm as he passed her in his search for the second switch. He stopped and was about to ask what was wrong but the fear in her eyes told him everything.

"He's shivering and he's tired. He's getting worse and fast. What if he…" She trailed off and Toby moved to the unit before she could finish the thought, to see for himself how bad it was.

It was bad.

Walter's skin was flushed like a heat was raging through him, but his body was shivering as though he'd been stranded in the arctic circle for a few hours. Sweat poured off him and his breathing was becoming shallower despite the oxygen currently hissing through the canula.

"Walter buddy, I need you to try and keep still. Your shaking isn't going to help things here." Toby said and Walter managed enough energy to send him a withering glare. "I know it's difficult to try and suppress your shivers, but you've got to try. If you don't, that bomb could go off. There's enough C4 under there to take us all out in here. You don't want us all to die, do you?" Toby asked, hoping to get the message across.

"Leave then, you're all good at that." Walter replied through the shivers. He couldn't help it. His filter was still thin, and he was still upset with them all for abandoning him they way they had.

Guilt hit them all, but Toby moved closer to the head of the unit where Walter's head rested, and he crouched down to be level with Walter's face. His own expression was of regretful remorse. He needed Walter to see it. "I'm not going anywhere now buddy." He said, his voice a tone softer and more serious than he'd ever been in his life. "I was wrong to have walked away from you. We all were, and we all regret it. We shouldn't have done that." He added. Walter frowned at him, then glanced at them all and realised he'd been unfair. They'd all come to rescue him, despite the odds of success being below probable. But Toby continued and it was cathartic to hear it said aloud. "You didn't deserve that. I'm sorry." Toby said and paused as he looked to the ground in shame. "But I'm here now, we all are. And we're not going anywhere now without you." He finished and looked back up to the restrained man. Walter had a strange look on his face, and Toby recognised it as similar to the one he had prior to breaking down over his sister's death. It wasn't like Walter to get emotional, so when he did, everyone knew it was a pretty serious thing. And that was when Toby realised, just how much their actions had hurt the man.

"Please…" Walter begged, and Toby felt his world tilt a little. Walter was begging… "Promise me. If you can't figure it out in the next ten minutes, then just get out." He said, and his face morphed into a tense growl of pain. His eyes were squeezed shut again as he tried to ride the pain out without moving. A trickle of blood made itself known from his right ear, the one facing the doctor, and Toby's face fell at the sight. Blood in the ear only meant that pressure was building in the brain's blood vessels.

Walter didn't have ten minutes.

"I found the inkstand!" Happy cried out, holding open a cabinet door and her cry couldn't have come at a better time.

"Pull it now!" Toby ordered. His shout was urgent, and she responded instantly. The switch clicked and the canula's tubes misted up with the lack of anything flowing through it. "Sly! Get that binary switch now!" Toby ordered and Sylvester _moved_. He triggered the switch without hesitance and a click sounded again but then something in the wall sparked and a small plume of smoke filtered out through the switch's screw holes. The unit remained locked shut.

"What happened?" Toby asked, his eyes wide in disbelief, and Sylvester shrugged helplessly back at him with just as wide a stare as his own. Happy was moving before anyone could ask her and she had a screwdriver on the switch in seconds. She pried the switch casing off the wall and swore at what she'd found.

Water from their first rescue and leaked into the circuitry.

The switch had been shorted.

"It's the same as the TV at the maze entrance." She explained as she pulled out a pair of wire cutters and some electrical tape. "The water from upstairs has leaked down here. I'm going to try and rewire the switch, give me a few minutes." She said as she worked fast, fingers dancing over the wires and the circuitry with a practised ease.

Toby glanced back at Walter who was trying hard to fight the shivers but was also failing to suppress them completely. The blood dripping from his ear hadn't stopped either and there was now a new trickle flowing from his nostril too. "Walter doesn't have a few minutes." Toby replied and just as he spoke, the worst possible thing that could happen, happened.

Walter seized.


	31. Ch30: Saving Private O'Brien Part 5

**Mind Games**

**Summary:** What do you get when you cross a depressed emotionally ill-equipped genius with a logical acidic solution?

**Disclaimer:** This is a fan-fiction story of the TV Series: Scorpion, and is in no way affiliated with the actual story/series in any of the aforementioned media. All characters and other materials related to the show that are used are not intended to infringe on any Copyrights. Elemental-Zer0 takes sole responsibility for any mistakes or offence that may be taken but truly not meant. However, any characters that are not related to any copyrights are copyrighted to Elemental-Zer0, as are any adaptions/variations to the plot set out in the original author's story/plot.

**Authors Note: **Chapter Thirty. Last chapter! It's here… I don't quite know how I feel about this. There is an epilogue to follow too but still…

You've all been so supportive of this story right from the start. I can't thank you all enough for your kind words of support and encouragement. You're the ones who have kept this story alive so far. Normally I never finish but your reviews and guesses and just your eagerness to read more has kept this story alive for me too, so much so I want to finish it and do more!

Because of your amazing support, and your exuberant reviews, I've decided to continue with a sequel. It's only partly planned at the moment so might take a few weeks (possibly even a few months) before I can start uploading any chapters. I hope you can bear with me for this period.

Thank you all again for joining me on this journey. I hope to see you all in the sequel. Details to follow in the epilogue.

* * *

_**Chapter Thirty: **__**Saving Private O'Brien Part 5**_

Happy threw herself at the isolation unit, her tools flying from her fingers as she skidded to a stop beside the unit. A hammer flicked into her hand and, uncaring of the fact that jarring the unit with a glass-smashing swing might set off the bomb, she let the hammer fly. Her reason had been that if Walter's erratic movements hadn't set it off yet, then perhaps the bomb wasn't as trigger-happy as she'd first suspected. That, or Collins was heavily overestimating his own bomb building abilities. Which, considering the shoddy work they've encountered so far, isn't too much of a stretch to believe, however it was impossible to tell now.

The glass shattered.

Then the whole rescue team moved as one, as though they'd rehearsed it a thousand times before even though they'd only met a few hours ago. It was a sight to see.

Being the closest three bodies at the time; Toby, Happy and Paige acted with a synchronicity that they'd never before achieved. Paige and Happy attacked the restraints with a ferocity that rivalled no other, while Toby began removing the medical apparatus that Walter had been hooked up to – _though he left the needle in place after detaching it from the sedative bag._

The two agents that had followed them from the cage room, were quick to unpack another fold-away stretcher, like the one that the two previous agents had used to rescue Abigail in the first chamber. The Commander had jumped onto the Homeland radio; asking where the other agents were at with the oxygen tanks for their quick departure through the krypton gas filled maze, and Sylvester took it upon himself to race down the hall to tell the other agents who were still waiting with Amberle in the cage room about the fast-coming events.

No one stopped to search the room for a secret passage or a way that Collins could have escaped from. He'd clearly had one, because at the beginning of the mission, Ralph had noted four heat signatures, but they'd only rescued three victims. They had already reasoned that even if they did find it, they didn't have time to figure out where it led to (_For all they knew, it could lead them out to a place that was further from medical help than the entrance they used to begin with_), or if it was booby trapped. Collins would have to wait. Rescuing Walter was more important, and he needed more medical help than Toby could provide with his measly mad-bag.

Toby swore under his breath as he and the other remaining men in the room worked together to lift Walter from the explosive-ridden bed without setting off the bomb or dropping the shaking man to the floor. Toby had instructed them to use the sheet from the bed so they didn't have to fight the shaking limbs for grip. When they finally set Walter down, the agents set to work securing his friend as best they could to the stretcher, while Toby rummaged in his med-bag looking for a drug that could help his ailing friend. He was sure he had a dose in here somewhere.

There!

Valproate. It wasn't what he'd hoped to use, but it would do the job. It was a preventative drug mostly but could be used as a reduction agent to help reduce the severity of the seizure –_ which is what he hoped to do now_. Luckily, because Toby had left the IV needle in, he didn't have to fight Walter's jerking movement to find a vein to administer the medicine. He pulled the vial out of his bag and fished out a sterile syringe to measure the dosage.

The agents stood suddenly and were on the move as soon as Walter was strapped down. Toby followed instinctively and had to measure out the dose while on the move. It made things more difficult, but he had been trained in the activity, so it wasn't impossible for him.

"Paige, hold the end of this tube for me and pass it to me when I ask for it." He commanded and shoved the IV line into her waiting hands. She kept pace easily as they ran so as not to pull the needle from Walter's arm. It was difficult considering how much Walter was uncontrollably moving about. It pained her and shook her to the core to see him like this. He'd always been an 'in-control' personality. To see him so… '_wild_', was jarring.

Toby carefully measured out the correct dose; recalling from memory Walter's size and weight, and calculating mentally how much valproate he'd need to deliver. When he was ready, she passed the IV line to him and Toby plunged the medication into the tubing.

For a few precious seconds, as they raced down the corridor to Amberle's cage room, it seemed like nothing had happened. But by the time they reached the waiting toddler party, Walter's seizure seemed to be calming down a little.

The team with the extra oxygen tanks were still racing through the maze, so they had a few minutes to get ready to go. Toby sat by Walter's stretcher and monitored his friend's situation. Walter's muscles were still giving off random and jerky spasms, but the severity had calmed down a lot. Toby checked his watch. It had only been three minutes. Any seizure lasting longer than around seven minutes was cause for concern but even as he watched, Toby could see that Walter was slowly coming out of the seizure.

It was then that Toby took to his bag again. Seizures, mixed with the infection that was spreading, could only mean that encephalitis had already taken a firm hold. But it could have just as easily been a symptom related to the rudimentary chip currently inside Walter's head. The shoddy work in the building scared Toby into imagining the shoddy work that could be inside Walter's brain. He'd have to get inside his friend's skull to be able to determine the extent of the damage but for now, he had to do something about that raging infection and fever.

He pulled several snap-cool packs out and handed a few to Paige who'd unwittingly become his amateur attending nurse. They set to work, activating the cool packs and placing them in various key places to try and cool Walter's rising temperature down such as the thighs, armpits and neck. Toby then dug through his med-bag again and retrieved a strong antibiotic in an IV pouch. And he also pulled out a tub of antiseptic wipes. He handed those over to Paige who took them without question. "See what you can do about the shallower wounds." He asked and after sanitising her own hands with a wipe, she began to work on the half-congealed lacerations that littered their former boss's body. Meanwhile, Toby was setting up the antibiotics to the IV line he'd used to control the seizure earlier.

A knock on the door told them that their oxygen tanks had arrived and with a practiced chaos, the agents set to work strapping tanks to those without one and setting the doses relevant to personal build and size. Toby allowed an agent to strap a tank to his back and found an oxygen mask being placed over his nose and mouth while he worked. Someone put a tank onto Walter's lap where it sat safely between his legs. Toby took the mask from the tank and secured it to his friend's face before holding the antibiotics bag up to allow gravity to administer the dose he'd set. It was a high dose, and a very aggressive antibiotic. But it had to be in order to fight the infection currently sweeping though Walter's body.

In minutes they were on the move again, jogging quickly through the krypton gas, maneuvering carefully back through the periodic table grid, and then rushing back through the maze corridors to the trap door hatch in the ceiling at the beginning of the maze.

With oxygen tanks still firmly in place, they worked together to unstrap Walter from the stretcher. His seizure had stopped completely now but the man was unconscious in a post-seizure coma, which was normal for a seizure of that magnitude.

"Take this," Toby said as he passed the antibiotic bag to the nearest person to his left, which happened to be Sylvester. Sylvester took the bag without complaint as Toby prepared to climb up out of the hatch, shedding his oxygen tank as he did to make himself lighter. They didn't need them at this point now anyway and he noticed that the others doing the same. "Pass it to me when I'm up there." Toby said as he grabbed waiting hands that pulled him up. When he'd established his footing, Sylvester passed him the antibiotic bag as instructed, and then the oxygen tank that Walter was hooked up to was passed up too and Toby took hold of that as well. While the others no longer needed the oxygen, Walter's deteriorating state changed the rules for him. Toby then stood back as far as the oxygen and IV tubing would allow, when a pair of agents took up position over the open hatch. The miniature army of agents below them managed to hoist Walter up to the waiting arms of the pair of agents. Between them all, they hauled Walter's unconscious body up to the ground floor of the warehouse.

Two paramedic gurneys were already waiting for them next to the hatch. One for Walter and one presumably for the Amberle, and Toby began to pass along information to the attending EMTs as they went for both patients.

"He's got several wounds with shrapnel in, sepsis is a big concern. I've already started him on a course of antibiotics. His temperature was at one-oh-nine-point-eight and there's an unidentified electrically based implant in his left frontal lobe. He's already suffered a seizure. Three minutes and forty-seven seconds long." He paused for a moment as Amberle was then passed up through the hatch and he gestured over to the crying toddler. "That's Amberle, she's bruised, tired, and probably hungry but otherwise I couldn't find anything wrong with her. She has family at the local hospital, a father, anxiously waiting for her return. He's an anesthetist specialist; covering all wards, but his office is located near the pediatrics ward." He rattled off as he moved with the medical group. There were two ambulances outside, one for each patient he assumed. And before he knew it; he found himself in Walter's ambulance using whatever they had at their disposal to save his friend's life.

"Toby?" Happy's voice came through the comms and Toby jumped a little at the sudden return to his surroundings. So lost had he been in his activity, that he'd lost touch with his very worried friends.

"Yeah Happy, I'm here." He replied as he set to work on stabilising Walter's rising temperature with more disposable ice packs while the ambulance wound its way through the afternoon traffic to the Homeland's secure medical building.

"The others are following the ambulance in Homeland's SUVs; I'm in with Amberle. We'll be right behind you." She said, and as irrational as it seemed, Toby felt relieved that his team would be present even if their presence could do nothing to physically help.

"Ok." He replied simply and he could foresee the next question before it arrived.

"How is he?" Of course, it was Paige's voice.

"He still unconscious," Toby said after a big sigh, "That's usual for a grand-mal seizure patient. His temperatures too high, and the infection is pretty extensive. If he responds to the aggressive antibiotics that I've got him on, he should pull through but the thing in his head in a massive variable that I don't understand or know how to control, and its putting a lot of pressure on his brain. If I can't relieve the pressure soon, he'll suffer another seizure and then we're in brain-damage territory." Toby reported, forgetting for a moment that he was talking to Paige and not a fellow doctor. He had no idea how much he'd just scared his friends, but he had no time to dwell on it. He turned to the EMT next to him and continued talking.

"I'll need an operating theatre, and anything you can prep for a brain invasion." He said and the EMT nodded before repeating the requests into their Homeland security issued radio.

Toby mentally tried to prepare himself for what was about to come.

* * *

The call came through just as Walter and Toby arrived at Homelands secure medical facility. Ralph and Florence had been ushered into a waiting car with the Director who took the call. They were in the SUV, heading toward the medical facility to meet up with everyone.

"Yes?" The Director's words were short and clipped but Ralph could hear the person talking on the other end of line.

"Ma'am, we found the child's father." The tinny voice said.

"Good, bring him to the facility." She replied and went to hang up, but the other person hadn't finished reporting.

"Uh, there's a problem. He's dead." The man reported and Ralph glanced at Florence. She met his gaze with wide eyes.

"I see." The Director replied. "What happened?" She asked, still unaware that her two car guests could hear every word her telephone partner was saying.

"Poison. Happened in the pediatric ward. He was checking up on some of the longer-term patients. Witnesses say he was bumped into by a man wearing scrubs and a mask. They didn't see where the suspect went. Cameras haven't picked him up either." Ralph pulled his phone out in what he'd hoped would pass as a casual manner, and quickly set to typing a text message to his mom. Telling her everything he's just heard.

"Ok. Bring him in anyway." The Director said. "Has she any other relatives we can identify?" She asked, hoping to find someone who could come for Amberle.

"None Ma'am. He was an only child; mother was too but she passed away at the birth. Both sets of grandparents are gone too. No other relatives that I can find." The man replied and Ralph was sure he could probably find a distant relative if he needed to for the toddler but that would have to wait for another time.

_How is Walter? _He sent to his mother after she confirmed his previous text message. He may have been acting calm for a kid his age, but inside he was _really_ scared. The intruder ordeal had been terrifying, even when it was all over and the guy had been shot and detained, Ralph had been running on adrenaline and had shifted the focus to the periodic table issue at the time to avoid his mother picking up on any fear he might have leaked in his speech. He'd faced a lot of scary stuff since he'd become acquainted with Scorpion. Made a few daring decisions too that were just as frightening.

But this was the most petrifying moment of his life; Walter was dying. He'd heard everything Toby had said.

Walter had survived everything else that life had thrown at him so far, so the evidence and the patterns suggested that this should be no different. But Toby had sounded so... unsure.

_I don't know sweetie. Toby's just taken him into surgery now. _His mom texted back. _I'll see you in a few minutes, we'll talk then x._

Walter was going to be ok. Right?

He_ had_ to be.

* * *

Four hours and twenty-seven minutes.

It had been that long since Toby had first entered the operating theatre with Walter on the table. For four hours and twenty-seven minutes, he dug his way into the poorly made hole inside Walter's skull and for four hours and twenty-seven minutes he swore an oath to end Collins in the most horrific manner he could conjure.

Never had he ever had to endure such a grueling fix up surgery in his life.

There'd been so many complications; Walter's body had been suffering severely from the infection induced fever. He'd been starved the entire time he'd been Collins' prisoner. He was dehydrated to the point of cellular attrition. He was in no condition to go into surgery without severe risk of death. But without the surgery he was going to die anyway.

At least with the surgery there'd been a chance.

Toby pulled a hand over his face and leaned against the foot of the bed he'd propped himself up against. He wasn't ready to tell the others what had happened yet. He wasn't sure he could accept it himself.

The damage that chip had done…

That that _bastard_ had done...

It wasn't completely reversible. The chip had been embedded too deeply, with fine wires threaded and intricately weaved into the nervous system nodes, that then lead to the front-left cortex where the device had been installed. Any attempt to remove the device had resulted in atrial fibrillation; an uneven heartbeat at risk of total heart failure. Several other organs reproached his attempts to remove the device too, so it was not currently possible to remove the loathe-some device without Walter dying. Collins had secured the device much deeper than the normal BBI research would have ever inferred.

Instead, he'd had to find a way to reduce the amount of stress the chip was causing by isolating the live wires and disconnecting those that were dormant. It was painstaking work, but he'd had to remove every individual, hair-thin, dormant wire without scratching Walter's brain cells themselves. The live wires were too ingrained and had severe consequences when they were touched.

While investigating the mess Collins had left behind, Toby also found a magnetic data transfer connection (or an MDT device) on the chip. In a sense it was like a wireless connection, not too dissimilar to a cochlear implant connector or a wireless charging device. A wave of inspiration had hit Toby then; they could reconfigure the device! They could connect to the MDT through their own interface and they could use it to monitor and hopefully block any incoming signals should Collins decide to send any.

He'd talked extensively with Sylvester over the comms about the issues, (considering that Sylvester couldn't walk in the OR without fainting), and he'd agreed it was the best possible solution for now until they could gather more research on the subject. Sylvester had then set up his laptop in the room next to the operating theatre after having passed Toby a wireless connection extender device to allow the laptop to read the signal the chip was emitting on through the concrete wall. He had then worked tirelessly with Toby to design a software that could access the chip fully and check that it had the ability to control the device before Toby had closed and cleaned the wound. Properly this time; using a non-conducting metal plate to protect the hole in Walter's skull until the bone could repair itself.

To his knowledge, Sylvester was still in the room next to the operating theatre, coding a program to block any unwanted incoming signals to the chip in Walter's head.

The shrapnel removal had also been tedious and painstaking. The nurses had helped diligently in the treatment of those lacerations; removing debris and draining the infected fluid within the wounds. But the risk of sepsis had become too high. Toby had started him on the strongest, most-aggressive antibiotics he could get his hands on –_ and with Homeland's backing, that had been some pretty strong stuff he'd managed to get hold of too - _after the bag he'd attached on the way here had been drained dry.

Four hours and twenty-seven minutes…

He looked up at the bed. Walter lay sleeping beneath the thin sheets. His normally olive complexion looked grey. It just reminded Toby of how close his friend had come to losing the battle of life. _If he hadn't walked out that night… If he'd reached out sooner… If he could read Walter like he could every other human on the planet…_

Regrets taunted him from within his own mind and he shook them away. For now, Walter was safe. It had been hard work but providing the infection and the fever continued to respond to the antibiotics in the manner they currently were…

A determined glint flashed in Toby's eyes.

Walter would survive.

He_ would._


	32. Epi: Wiping the Slate Clean

**Mind Games**

**Summary:** What do you get when you cross a depressed emotionally ill-equipped genius with a logical acidic solution?

**Disclaimer:** This is a fan-fiction story of the TV Series: Scorpion, and is in no way affiliated with the actual story/series in any of the aforementioned media. All characters and other materials related to the show that are used are not intended to infringe on any Copyrights. Elemental-Zer0 takes sole responsibility for any mistakes or offence that may be taken but truly not meant. However, any characters that are not related to any copyrights are copyrighted to Elemental-Zer0, as are any adaptions/variations to the plot set out in the original author's story/plot.

**Authors Note: **Epilogue. It all ends today … (For a while at least…)

Ok so by now, you'll all know that I am planning a sequel. I was in two minds about this but you've all convinced me. Therefore, there is a little twist to come in this epilogue. I wasn't originally going to go along with this idea. I was just going to wrap up everyone's emotions and have a heart-warming reunion between Scorpion with a small piece where Collins was picked up by the borders of Canada…

However; a sequel needs something more to work properly and not be a flop. Hence this little muse… not going to spoil the surprise. You'll have to read on to find out what's in store for you all in the sequel.

Please don't hate me!

**FYI **– The sequel's current working title is:** _Family Ties_.** This may change but I'm sure you'll have no trouble finding it if you follow my profile.

**Update** – The sequel will now be called _**The Long Game**_, and the Prologue is being uploaded today (25/06/2019) so go check it out!

No flames please. If you have any criticism to make please do it _politely_.

* * *

_**Epilogue: Wiping the slate clean**_

The waiting room was quiet in a subdued kind of manner. It was late, around eleven-fifty-pm. It had been a long and exhausting day for all of them. When Toby walked into the waiting room only Happy and Paige looked up to see who had entered the room. The others had fallen asleep waiting. Sylvester had obviously finished with his software development. Either that or he was taking a well-earned break. He and Florence were propped up against one another in the far corner, Florence curled into Sylvester's side while Sylvester held on to her waist in his sleep. Ralph was asleep on Paige's lap, coat draped over his upper body while Paige wound her fingers through his hair. She'd been on her phone, most likely distracting herself from the worry she was no doubt enduring. And Happy was… Toby had to look twice to confirm what he was seeing.

Happy was holding the toddler they'd rescued while the young girl slept.

For a moment Toby's world just stopped. Throughout the whole ordeal since the morning of yesterday, so much had happened that he hadn't even begun to think about the young toddler until she was in his sights, and even then, it had been with a medically impartial filter, but now…

Happy gave him an embarrassed frown but otherwise did not try to move the child in her arms or stand up to greet him. And Toby had to admit, she looked good with a kid in her arms. Something in his heart fluttered a little at the sight and looking at the two now, he was hard pressed to imagine seeing Happy without a child. They seemed to complete one another.

"How is he?" Paige asked quietly, having used the time that Toby had been stricken with the image of his wife with a child, to settle Ralph on the seat who was still fast asleep. Toby gave a deep sigh before sitting down, a little harder than he'd anticipated, on to one of the waiting seats next to Happy. They were hard and uncomfortable but still a welcome relief from having to stand for so long. He couldn't even remember the last time he'd sat down to rest.

"He's stable." He said to the two of them. "His fever is slowly coming down and the infection seems to be retreating for now. I don't foresee that changing." Toby continued, then leaned forward in the seat and rested his elbows on his knees. "It's that chip in his head that has me worried. And that seizure…" He let his head fall into his hands in exhaustion. "I've no idea what damage that thing has done to Walter's brain. We'll need to be careful with our observations of him for the first few weeks. If anything looks out of the ordinary, we need to know." He said into his hands. "I'd say the possibility of some brain damage is in the region of sixty-five percent. The chip is also a risk for more complications that we'll need to overcome." He added tiredly.

"You couldn't remove it?" Paige asked as she sat on the other chair next to the exhausted doctor.

"No. Every time I tried, his heart stopped." Toby said, "The best I could do was to isolate the live wires and remove the dormant ones." He explained. "I had Sly develop a programme that could allow us to access the chip to see what it does and whether we can create some type of firewall to stop anyone else getting inside it. If they do, they could shut down parts of his brain that controls vital organs… they'd be able to just switch him off…" Toby explained and his voice went quiet as he said it. The implications were slowly sinking in as to how vulnerable Walter was now. He could effectively be hacked. Not to mention what could happen if an electrical magnetic field disrupted the delicate electrical circuitry in the chip… strong magnets would be a problem. High density electrical fields like a Faraday cage and such would be a risk too.

The number of things that Walter would have to monitor and steer clear of was growing exponentially the longer he thought about it.

He felt Paige stiffen beside him as he explained all the potential threats that might affect their ex-boss. He wanted to comfort her, to tell her it'd be alright, but he'd be lying. Collins was still loose and had more knowledge on the subject than Toby did, and right now he was the main threat. He wasn't about to patronise her; Paige knew the dangers were real and no amount of sugar coating it would make them seem any more acceptable.

"Can I see him?" She asked softly. The dangers Toby had pointed out had triggered a need in her to see Walter, to touch him and be sure he was there and safe. Or as safe as he could be for the moment.

"Sure." Toby relented and stood to show her to the recovery room. He gave Happy a quick kiss before leading Paige out of the waiting room and down a few halls until they approached a door with two burly agents stood outside. Neither of them acknowledged their presence which Paige wasn't sure if she was relieved or creeped out by.

Toby opened the door for her, and she walked in. "Call me over the comms if you need anything." He said before shutting the door behind her and returning to the waiting room.

Paige turned to the bed in the middle of the room. It was dark, the lights obviously not required while the patient was sleeping, but the moonlight through the guarded window lit the room up enough for her to lay eyes on the man she'd fallen heart and soul for. She approached slowly; afraid that if she moved too fast, the dream she'd been dreaming would shatter and he'd disappear again before her eyes.

She slipped into the chair that had been placed beside the bed and stared at his sleeping face lit by the prominent moonlight. It was so similar to all the various other times she'd watched him sleep. She could almost believe that the past few weeks had never happened, let alone the past two days.

Carefully, minding the tangle of wires and medical tubes that connected Walter to so many different pieces of apparatus that it made her head spin, she found his hand with her own. It was warm and reassuring. And just as she remembered it.

She stared at their intertwined hands for a moment, relishing the familiarity of it. A little piece of that wholeness she'd been missing flowed into her. She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply, committing the feeling to memory.

His hand twitched in hers.

Her eyes flashed open at a speed that defied all laws of physics.

Dark brown eyes stared back at her, squinting a little in the darkness but clearly tracking her features.

"Walter." She greeted with a watery smile and squeezed his hand in hers. "Hey." She said through a tight throat. "Welcome back." She added as a few tears of relief fell down her cheeks, her heart feeling complete for the first time in a long time.

He frowned up at her lightly and parted his lips to speak. She leaned in close to hear whatever he was about to say.

"Who…" he started breathily.

Her heart fluttered. Her blood turned to ice. '_No…_'

"…are you?"


	33. Sequel now Available

Sorry its been a while but I can tell you now that the sequel is now out!

You'll want to look for a story called: **The Long Game**

Just the prologue for now. Chapter one is still being written.

Let me know what you think x


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